2024-08-15 04:31:49
Period footage shows how in just twenty seconds the early morning earthquake of July 26, 1963 turned Skopje, the capital of Macedonia in the former Yugoslavia, into a scrum of rubble and rubble with thousands dead and injured.
The exhibition entitled No Feeling Lasts Forever, which is being organized by the National Gallery in Prague’s Veletržní Palace until September 29, reminds us of what followed. Thirty-five states at the UN General Assembly requested that aid to the affected country become the first point of discussion. Less than a year after the Cuban Missile Crisis, which almost unleashed a nuclear apocalypse, a divided world looked at images of destruction and decided to support Skopje.
Poland built a Museum of Contemporary Art there, to which authors and institutions from all over the world donated their works. For example, the painter Pablo Picasso dedicated a painting to the metropolis rising from the ruins. This is probably the best-known item of the so-called solidarity collection, which was created across the ideological borders of the time. “It was not about solidarity regardless of geopolitics, in the case of the former Yugoslavia it was rather the opposite,” points out Rado Ištok, one of the curators of the international group show, the version of which was hosted by the Vienna Kunsthalle outside Prague.
You can listen to the podcast with Rad Ištok here:
“Shortly before the Caribbean crisis, Yugoslavia, along with Cuba, India or Egypt, was at the founding of the Non-Aligned Movement. For the UN and other actors of the time, it was geopolitically important that the reconstruction took place in Yugoslavia,” the curator explains the historical context. The Non-Aligned Movement, founded in 1961, still exists today, bringing together more than a hundred states.
Because of the earthquake in Skopje, more than 1,000 people died immediately, more than 3,000 others were injured, and approximately 200,000 people ended up homeless. In 1965, Czechoslovakia also contributed to the art collection to help the damaged city.
The guest of the Na dotek podcast is curator Rado Ištok. | Photo: Matej Slávik
Rado Ištok points out that the official gift from us came at a turning point. “At the end of the previous year, Adolf Hoffmeister, a political caricaturist and cultural diplomat, became the chairman of the Union of Visual Artists. On the one hand, he was a link between Czechoslovakia and abroad, not only with the West, but also with the countries of South and Central America, but also between the domestic official and an unofficial art scene,” the curator explains how, for example, a painting by Mikuláš Medek ended up in the collection for Skopje.
It was only thanks to the new management of the union that he was able to become a full member after decades of communist adversity. “If the Czechoslovak donation had been organized a year earlier, it would probably look completely different,” estimates Ištok.
The exhibition, which also includes works by Emil Filla, Jindřich Štyrský and Jan Zrzavý, presents evidence of mutual international artistic solidarity. It touched the land of the former Yugoslavia again during the war in the 1990s.
However, the collection itself can also be seen as a time capsule of late modernism, whose ideals were later replaced in Macedonia by nationalism and the effort to transform the city to the ancient grandeur of the time of Alexander the Great. Today, the 11-meter-tall statue of the ancient warlord stands in the center of the capital of a country that – to the displeasure of neighboring Greece – claims the legacy of an important figure of Hellenic antiquity.
Ironically, today’s Skopje does not have enough funds to secure its solidarity collection. “She was able to travel to Vienna and Prague mainly because the part of the museum where she is exhibited is currently awaiting reconstruction, as it is leaking,” states the curator.
The collection for Skopje reminds us of the very concept of solidarity, which in the past was emptied by communist propaganda. “It comes and goes in generational waves, which are natural. In certain periods, there is more interest in the well-being of the individual. At other times, we realize again that it is good to invest in mass transport or public art collections,” says Ištok, a native of Velké Krtíš in Slovakia.
The word comes up again in connection with current events, when the current Slovak Minister of Culture recently dismissed the director of the Slovak National Theater and Gallery. Colleagues from the National Gallery in Prague, among others, showed solidarity with them. “Just the gesture of expressing the support that gallery director Alexandra Kusá received from her colleagues from many other museums and galleries in the Czech Republic and in other countries is very important,” says the curator. “At such a moment, one does not feel alone in what one is experiencing. In the Czech Republic, we are not an isolated island immune to events in Europe and in neighboring countries. This can also be a warning for us, how a single government can change public space over a certain period of time,” he adds .
Welcome to the Na dotek podcast. Peter Vizina’s guest is curator Rado Ištok. To listen on the platforms: Soundcloud, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Spreaker.