On the road to continuity
Zuzana Gažíková
On 18 September the P. M. Bohúň Gallery in Liptovský Mikuláš hosted the opening ceremony of the second year of the Textile Triennial whose main organiser is the Textile Artists Association Arttex (KTV-Arttex). In December 2009, the exhibition will be rerun on the premises of the Arts House in Bratislava.
The first year of the Textile Triennial was held in 2006 and stimulated great interest of the authors from different countries. Almost half of the previous year’s participants took part in the second year of the triennial. The exhibition presents a selection of works by almost 50 authors. Authors from Slovakia make up the bulk of participants, but other European countries are also represented, such as the Czech republic, Poland, Switzerland, Serbia, Finland, Italy, and Rumania. From among them the expert jury selected the award –winning authors. The Grand Prix for best textile artwork went to Andrea Ševčíková Marčeková (SR). The Students Award was awarded to Ľubomíra Abrahámová, a student of the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava. The Award of P. M. Bohúň Gallery in Liptovský Mikuláš, conferred for transcending the boundaries between media, was won by Dana Fagová, an undergraduate of the Academy of Fine Arts (VŠVU) in Bratislava. The KTV – Arttex Award went to a young Polish artist Ludwika Źytkiewicz.
For the sake of objectivity we need to say that the Textile Triennial in its second year has also displayed some teething problems, flaws and beauty defects. These will have to be analysed and evaluated. Indeed, if the triennial has the ambition to compete with similar exhibitions abroad the threshold of demands will need to be substantially raised. This project aspires to produce an interesting and high-quality event presenting and documenting a technique that is not outdated. On the contrary, it is a discipline capable of development and it can prove to be contemporary and topical.