Touch of Slovakia
An opportunity seized?
I accepted the generous offer made by the president of the World Crafts Council BF, Mrs Anne Leclerq, to present
The question was:
I went for the the second option, one in which young, up-and-coming talents confront mature artists in a dialogue between provocation, protest, unfettered playfulness and polished quality.
It is an honour for the
The question is:
Will the exhibition show the specifics of this particular aspect of
Will “TOUCH“ lead to a mutually-enriching, professional-level Belgian-
Júlia Kunovská
DIALOGUES
In the facilities of Frederiksberg City Hall, best fitted for historic relations, also the contemporary crafts and design exhibition „Dialogues“ designed by Júlia Kunovská fitted it. Simply becouse the designer had taken the liberty to introduce a ceiling covering her show. As several white sails created an intimacy over the exhibits, and formed a friendly room around them. Even the lights passing through the sails added so much charm to the quality of the well designed blond inventory and the presentation of the exhibits. The inventory, which was designed for travelling and easy assembling, came to the hall as flat sheets of plywood and plexiglasses. These parts were then easily combined with shelves and metal fittings to form graciously waved panels and all the backings for showcase, which were lined up in movements like big curves open for entrance and passage for guests.
The selection of exhibits attracted the Danish audience in many ways.First of all becouse of the materials – the Slovak identity – familiar for Danes.But also due to a high degree of artistic craftsmaship, as illustrated in the glasses and the works of wood and fiber. Further one of the major design pieces – the Slovak table – formerly presented in France, where it was awarded first prize, and toured in Europe on the travelling exhibition „Europe at Table“, made an impression of its own.
This piece was further after a special invitation to Júlia Kunovská presented in a copy at the Danish Museum of Decorative Art, downtown Copenhagen, where it attracted great interest among the design-interested visitors
Quotation from article Dialogues in Copenhagen, John Vedel-Rieper, architect m.a.a., Designum 4/1998
Award from Kanazawa
I don't know any artist or designer in Slovakia who would devote to tableware so much interest and feeling for simple detail, love and wit like Júlia Kunovská. She has always tried to find the essentials of and to attribute a special morphology to the characteristic elements of the Slovak dining culture. It is not easy to find a pattern for such design. She often refers to the past, where she looks for inspiration particularly in traditional technologies, materials and functions, which she transforms to contemporary morphology.
The bowl has an important position in dining setting by Júlia Kunovská. It is the central motif - the heart and a kind of symbol of hospitality, friendship, and mutual communication.
It was surely not by chance that just her Torso metal bowl has won an award in the World Competition of Arts & Crafts Kanazawa '99 in Japan. The competition was entered by 1 214 artists from all over the world. Finally, the jury awarded 3 main prizes which remained in Japan, and 5 honourable mentions.
Such a great event of arts and crafts provides the opportunity to see the material culture in a broader context. According to the U.S. jury member, Albert Paley, utility objects are more and more pieces of art and they become cultural symbols, representing the originality of regions and cultural values of our epoch at the same time.
It is nearly unbelievable that from among the great number of various objects from glass, textile, ceramics and metal, they selected just the bowl by Júlia Kunovská, simple and clear in shape. The bowl is a poetic symbol of female lap, and at the same time it seems as if it wanted to fly up. It is interesting to read the words pronounced by the renowned Japanese designer and jury member, Ikko Tanaka, expressing his admiration: "The metal bowl of the Slovakian artist has three cuts on the flat plate from different directions. Each of the half-severed parts is gently curved leaving the triangular bottom in the middle. The blooming petal-like curves on the brims appear very ethereal as if they were bird's wings. This piece not only blends with contemporary living, but also it can be universally admired. It is a piece of art which I would like to have around me."
The Award from Kanazawa. Katarína Hubová, Designum 4/1999
…The Europeanism of Júlia Kunovská has nothing in common with plagiarism or international style either. I would like to illustrate it by a theme - which is my favourite one, namely the carpets. Júlia Kunovská has taken such a banal thing like folk rag carpets, which are not particularly fancy products only seldom shown in exhibitions in contrast to excellent laces, embroideries and big shepherd's fifes, and in a simple way of combination and seaming she worked literally miracles. At once she made them highly topical in the modern contemporary applied art and, moreover, with the characteristic rhythm she has given them a mark of her unique poetics. So she created something expressively new, undoubtedly rooted in the domestic culture and, nevertheless, generally attractive, what has been confirmed by the interest shown by European professionals.
A fragment of the speach at the opening ceremony of the author exhibition, Umelecká beseda, Bratislava, 1990 Ondřej Sekora
Why the event - non-event?
The name of Júlia Kunovská should have been familiar with the general public since long ago. At least for ten years it should have been the guarantee of quality and a mark of being up to international standards for many industrial products - such as furniture, household textiles and various accessories. Industrial managers along with curious art loving public should queue for her exhibition. And meanwhile, only a handful of well informed people are aware of her achievements. If the roof windows were cleaned at the exhibition rooms in Dostojevského street, it would resemble a show-room of some prosperous and expensive European interior design store - but, in fact, it is only an exhibition of never manufactured designs and prototypes.
However, Júlia Kunovská has got - probably from the God himself? - many excellent features characteristic for a top designer. She feels exactly the spirit of the time. Even in the years of the utmost isolation she has not resorted to epigonous copying, but naturally created a style for the moment. Any creative idea is immediately and maybe automatically transformed by her to a developing collection, perfectly blended from the artistic and philosophic point of view. Moreover, she has got that undefined "something", perhaps an inner rhythm to correct dimensions and a principle of implementing particular elements in all her works which create the tension making her designer craft to art...
A part of the article "The event - non-event". Ondřej Sekora, Národná obroda, May 1990