Ján Kralovič: Ivan Štěpán – Between the surface and the object

We cordially invite you to the lecture by Ján Kralovič Ivan Štěpán: Between the surface and the object, which will take place on Tuesday, February 28, 2023 at 6 p.m. in the MEDIUM Gallery.

MEDIUM Gallery, Hviezdoslavovo námestie 18, Bratislava


The polymedia work of the artist Ivan Štěpán (1937-1986) has not been more comprehensively processed until now. In the 1960s, he was involved in the creation of objects, environments, book and magazine editing, as well as the creation of posters and printed matter. In the following decades, he mainly devoted himself to exhibitions, communication design and logotypes. In the lecture, I will try to introduce the author as a universal creator, but I will devote the core to graphic design proposals and realizations. In the archive of the Slovak Museum of Design, a large number of printed materials, posters and promotional works have been preserved, on the basis of which it is possible to trace the transformations of Štěpán's handwriting, his cultivated artistic expression and unusual sense of humor.

 


Mgr. Ján Kralovič, PhD.

he studied History of Art and Culture at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Trnava in Trnava. In the years 2012 – 2016, he worked as a scientific and research worker at the University of Fine Arts in Bratislava. He currently works at the Department of History and Theory of Art at VŠVU, where he lectures on the history of Slovak art of the 20th century, the history of new media, topics related to book culture and illustration, and conducts seminars focused on the theory and interpretation of works of art. He regularly publishes review contributions, professional texts and scientific studies on neo-avant-garde and contemporary art and book culture in professional journals (Jazdec, Ostium, FlashArt, artalk.cz, Fraktál, Profil, Vlna, etc.). He occasionally works as a curator. In 2014, he published the publication Teritórium ulica (Art of action in urban space in the years 1965 - 1989 in Slovakia) and in 2017 a monograph focused on housing exhibitions and artistic activities in the period of normalization under the title Mastery behind the door.

 


The lecture and research were supported by the Slovak Arts Council in the form of a scholarship.


The reproduction on the invitation comes from the cover of the book by Słavomir Mrożek - Tadeusz Różewicz: Absurdity, edited by Ivan Štěpán (1966)