Exhibitions

Ormandík – Špaňhel. Podobnosti náhod

ZOYA Museum, Modra (SK), 12.10.2025-18.01.2026

Neo-Expressionist, Neo-Fauvist, New Figurative, Neue Wilde, Junge Wilde, Figuration Libre, Trans-avantgarde, New Image Painting, Bad Painting, gestural, energetic, or obsessive painting? Which of these accumulated terms should we choose to calm our need to categorize, catalogue, classify, and name the phenomena objectively present on the canvases of these two prominent figures of Czechoslovak art after 1989? Both Marek Ormandík and Jakub Špaňhel work within sociocultural conditions and stylistic intentions that certainly justify art historians’ use of the aforementioned nomenclature; yet at the same time, their work allows this terminology to be relativized.

The liberated gesture, the spontaneity of expression, and even the obsession are not phenomena unique to art history since the 19th century. Expression has been one of the dominant programs of modernism, and even in 2025 this manifesto of free painterly expression does not seem exhausted. Marek Ormandík and Jakub Špaňhel both align themselves with this program through their work. Their painterly handwriting is remarkably distinct, tested over decades, and faithful to a personal devotion to art that seeps through every layer of paint on the canvas.

The fact that this exhibition marks the first occasion for a more comprehensive dialogue between the two is no coincidence; and although their works show a certain superficial degree of likeness, as mentioned, they remain recognizably different. So what kinds of similarities can be read here? What kinds of coincidences occur? And how should we name what unfolds in the mutual confrontation between these two artists?

Good art is exceptional in that it invites—indeed provokes—us to answer precisely such questions. It compels us to search for that elusive connection between the various causes of our aesthetic experience. For several years, comparing these two solitary artists within the context of their home scenes has led me to ponder why their expressions seem so analogous to me. I am glad that the opportunity has finally arisen to realize this dialogue and thus to critically examine the question of compatibility between two unmissable positions in contemporary Central European painting.

https://zoyamuseum.sk/vystavy/ormand%C3%ADk-spanhel-podobnosti-nahod

https://www.pravda.sk/spravy/kultura/clanok/770720-foto-v-modre-vystavuju-svoje-monumentalne-diela-dvaja-vynimocni-umelci

https://www.aktuality.sk/clanok/hroHb9K/vystava-monumentalnych-diel-dvoch-vynimocnych-autorov/