The artwork Svetelné body 3/Light objects 3 comes from the series of four light objects Svetelné body 1 - 4/Light objects 1 - 4, on which there are depicted enlarged fragments of the naked female body with the accentuation of the erotogenic details, such as mouth, breasts, bellybutton and genitals...

No.: F-33

Artist: Jana Želibská
Title: Light objects 3
Year of origin: 1980
Technique: light object
Materiál: mixed material (wood, photocanvas, glowlamp)
Dimensions: 41,5 x 40,5 cm
Signature: unsigned

The artwork Svetelné body 3/Light objects 3 comes from the series of four light objects Svetelné body 1 – 4/Light objects 1 – 4, on which there are depicted enlarged fragments of the naked female body with the accentuation of the erotogenic details, such as mouth, breasts, bellybutton and genitals. The intimate parts of the female body, in this particular case the bellybutton part are replaced by the tiny bulb – a light source, which becomes an expressive element of the whole composition. In this cycle of objects, as well as in many others in her artistic programme, she thematizes the female body, sensuality and sexuality and attacks the conventional system of gender stereotypes. Her aim is not only to ironize the stereotypical male point of view – a female as a universal sexual object of desire – but also to defend the image of a female as a passive subject. In many of her later works she turns around the situation of a male and female, who was until now in the position of a viewer. She made an object of her own observation (Jej pohľad na neho/Her view of him, 1996). The artwork Svetelné body 3/Light objects 3 borrowed from the Nitra Gallery accuisitions were exhibited at the prestigious international exhibition Gender Check with the aim to map the gender aspects of the art of the former Eastern Europe (Museum Moderner Kunst, Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna, 2009).

The author is the first representative of feminism in Slovakia and at the same time one of the important key personalities of a strong generation entering the art scene in the 1960s. She criticizes gender stereotypes on a long term basis and includes them in her artwork since her beginnings on the art scene, when the sexuality was still a tabu. Her early work is connected with the absorbing the features of Neo-Dadaism, Pop Art and New Realism, but very early she profiled herself with an individual artistic programme. She works with different media from object and environment, through installation, action and video.

Jana Želibská was born on May 3, 1941 in Olomouc. In 1959-66 she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava. In 1967 she opened her first individual exhibition Možnosti odkrývania/Possibilities of uncovering in Cyprián Majerník Gallery in Bratislava and two years later another individual exhibition Kandarya-Mahádeva (Indial Love Temple). In the late 1960s and early 1970s she participated in various events by Alex Mlynárčik (Keby všetky vlaky sveta/If all the trains in the world, Deň radosti v Zakamennom/Day of happiness in Zakamenne, Memoriál Edgara Degasa/Edgar Degas memorial in Liptovský Mikuláš and Bratislava, 1971) and made her first performance Snubenie jari/Spring wed (Dolné Orešany, 1970). At the beginning of the 1970s she participated in various important group exhibitions, which finished the period of the liberal 1960s and introduced the change of the political situation after the unsuccessful Prague Spring (Polymuzický priestor I, socha, objekt, svetlo, hudba/Poly-muses space I, sculpture, object, light, music, Piešťany, 1970 I. Otvorený atelier/I. Open studio, Bratislava 1970). In the 1970s after reestablishement of the totalitarian regime she belonged to the unofficial art scene. In 1982-84 she participated in the four sequels of the action group Terén. After the fall of communism, her main artistic medium became video.

Barbora Geržová

This acquisition has been supported using public funds provided by the Ministry of Culture of the Slovak Republic.