Collection of Rudolf Sikora

http://courage.btk.mta.hu/courage/individual/n18349

The items in Rudolf Sikora’s personal collection are important because of the value they acquired through their connection between the original artistic happenings and the meaning they were given in relation to normalisation-era policies. Their reference to the avant-garde were seen as oppositional, and this fact influenced Sikora’s further activities as well as the entire group of artists commenting on and creating works with similar themes, such as environmental issues. The collection was created gradually since 1970, particularly from the time of a so-called Open atelier in his appartement on Tehelná street in Bratislava (19 December 1970). Although the pieces in his personal collection are only a fraction of his artistic production, for the majority of this was recently acquired by the Slovak national gallery, they still have significant value.

Location

Bratislava, Slovakia
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Languages

Slovak

Website

https://www.webumenia.sk/katalog?author=Sikora%2C+Rudolf

Name of collection

Private collection of Rudolf Sikora

Provenance and cultural activities

Rudolf Sikora is one of the most active and influential artists in Slovakia, despite not being a member of official academic structures. He was born in 1946 in Žilina and in graduated from the University of Creative Arts in the 1960s. At the same time, he studied scenography at the University of Performing Arts. He does not consider himself strictly a painter, since he works with photography, graphics, text, and collage as well.

Rudolf Sikora was regularly interrogated by the state security apparatus, the ŠtB. His activities were followed. Although his work is wide-ranging, he dealt mostly with ecological sustainability and a common earth habitat. The anti-regime nature of his works did not reside in his attacks on the state or its ideology; rather, it lies more in the fact that he did not create or performedwithin the frame of the official structures. His interest in environmental protection very much looks to the future: within the framework of the Cold War and the Czechoslovak normalisation policy, he tried to combat an ignorant attitude towards nature. Along this line of thought, he also cooperated with a variety of semi-official environmental circles. During the 1970s and 1980s, he enriched his works with other artistic practices, mainly from photography. Among his most notable works are “Out of town,” “Black holes,” Pyramid,” “Contacts,” and “Anthropic principle.”

In 1976, he managed to avoid the official “Union of Slovak creative artists” and thanks to the Polish embassy, he filed his works to the Biennale posters exhibition. He felt close to its leitmotiv “Habitat,” and he created pieces for it related by a common idea of a shared world house for which he won the first prize. But he could not accept the award because he was not a part of official party artistic structures. This situation clearly demonstrates the nature and extent of his anti-regime status: he could work but could not exhibit.

Sikora’s personal collection has been retained during his life, and it represents essential memories for the artist. Indeed, he had to maintain this collection because he was not allowed to exhibit his work during the communist period. The situation changed after the regime change, and his work now appears in both publich and private galleries. Currently, the Slovak national gallery holds the majority of his works, thus the majority of Sikora’s artwork is accessible to the public.

Description of content

The majority of Rudolf Sikora’s private collection has been moved gradually to the Slovak national gallery (mainly in the years 2016 to 2017). Nonetheless, some posters, notes, and artefacts are still held in his private collection, most of these originating from the so called 1. Open atelier. These are objects that symbolically started his career, which was defined as oppositional within the communist regime’s rule.

Content

artifacts: 10-99
paintings: unknown quantity

Operator(s)

Owner(s)

Sikora, Rudolf

Geographical scope of recent operation

international

Topics

Founder(s)

Sikora, Rudolf

Date of founding

1967

Place of founding

Bratislava, Slovakia
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Creator(s) of content

Sikora, Rudolf

Collector(s)

Sikora, Rudolf

Important events in the history of the collection

Access type

parts are closed to the public

Publications

SIKORA, Rudolf. Alone with photography. Richard Guzman - RICHIE, 2016, 328 s.

Author(s) of this page

Ivančík, Matej

References

Sikora, Rudolf, interview by Ivančík, Matej, November 23, 2017. COURAGE Registry Oral History Collection

Last edited on: 2020-03-04 17:30:56

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