Maľba in Milan

Last year’s edition of the Maľba competition was the 12th organised by the VUB Foundation for young painters. Several exhibitions around Slovakia were organised to mark the competition’s 10th anniversary in 2015 under the title “Ten years of the Maľba competition”. Last year the exhibition collection was also shown in Italy.

“10 Years of the Maľba (Painting) competition” was a retrospective show of winning work and a touring exhibition marking a milestone in the competition’s history. Visitors could see it in 2015 at the East Slovak Gallery in Košice, the Central Slovakia Gallery in Banská Bystrica and the Slovak National Museum’s branch at Bratislava Castle.

After the annual retrospective exhibitions of „10 Years of Maľba (Painting) competition“  was also shown in Italy in 2016. Thirty winning paintings of 26 young Slovak artists were exhibited in Milan’s Galleria d’Italia, who received the highest recognition by the jury in the Maľba (Painting) competition in the previous decade. 

The exhibition is presented to Italian public in the prestigious gallery Gallerie d´Italia in the heart of Milan in 2016. The gallery situated at Piazza Scala is a part of museum and culture centre of Intesa Sanpaolo, the parent company of VÚB. The historic palace of the bank transformed to exhibition premises provided a wonderful place for the presentation of young Slovak art.

Ignacio Jaquotot, a founder of the competition welcomed in the gallery not only Italian art lovers, but also the artists who were enthusiastic about the exhibition of their works in the prestigious gallery. “It is a great honour for me to present my picture in this gallery, it is a marvellous feeling,” says one of the exhibiting authors, Lucia Tallová. 

According to an artist Jána Vasilko the Milan Gallerie d´Italia is the best gallery he has ever exhibited in and he also likes the wonderful urban environment of Milan. A well-known Slovak artist Erik Šille adds, “Thank you for the opportunity given to me by VUB Foundation; I accepted the invitation to Milan with great pleasure.”

On the occasion of the exhibition, a representation catalog was issued, which provides all important information about the Painting competition and its winners in the last 10 years. Nina Gažovičová is an author of the catalogue as for its content and its editing, who was also a curator of the exhibition, a graphical design of the catalog was made by Boris Meluš.