Exhibition Oscar Niemeyer – Sensual Curves of Architecture

The exhibition at the Tatra Gallery in Poprad about the world-renowned architect Oscar Niemeyer is an interesting spatial solution and offers a wealth of photographs, studies, and models about this architect. We present the exhibition based on a long-term collaboration between TG and the Cabinet of Architecture in Ostrava.

OSCAR NIEMEYER

(December 15, 1907 – December 5, 2012) Oscar Niemeyer is a legend of world architecture. He was born in Rio de Janeiro. At the age of twenty-three, he enrolled at a local art academy, and after graduating, found work in the studio of Lúcia Costa. Costa was a fervent advocate of modern trends that quickly spread from Europe to the South American continent. A turning point in Niemeyer's life occurred in 1936 when Le Corbusier visited Brazil. Niemeyer was initially a devoted student and collaborator of his master, but gradually became his rival. Niemeyer still talks about his great role model: "Le Corbusier had extraordinary imagination. He was a great architect, but as a person, he was small." In this context, it is interesting that Niemeyer emphasizes imagination as the main guiding principle of architectural art. He himself developed an architecture whose formal aspect often prevails over practicality. The best proof of this is the capital Brasília, which is a significant tribute to Niemeyer's artistic genius.

The exhibition of photographs by Slovenian art historian Prof. Damjan Prelovšek pays tribute to the most significant buildings of Brazil's capital, which this year celebrate the 66th anniversary of their construction and their creator, the legend of world architecture Oscar Niemeyer.

DAMJAN PRELOVŠEK

(* February 18, 1945) After graduating in 1965, he studied history and art history at the University of Ljubljana. After completing his studies at the university in 1969, he obtained a Herder Scholarship in Vienna, where he primarily collaborated with Professor Renate Wagner Rieger. In 1977, he obtained a doctorate with a dissertation on Plečnik's work in Vienna (he is a co-author of the current exhibition at Bratislava Castle about Plečnik).

Since 1971, Damjan Prelovšek has worked at the Institute of Art History of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences, of which he became the director in 1995. In 1972, he represented the then Yugoslavia at the Munich Olympic Games in the discipline of whitewater slalom. In 1990 and 1991, he served as a visiting professor at the University of Salzburg in Austria and in 1992 at the Central European University in Prague and at the College for New Europe in Krakow. Since 1992, he has been a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts based in Austria. From 1998 to 2002, he served as the Slovenian ambassador in Prague. Damjan Prelovšek focuses his work primarily on the history of Slovenian architecture and modern art, especially on the work of architect Josip Plečnik, as evidenced by the large number of articles published in Slovenian and foreign professional journals. As a consultant and initiator, he has contributed to the preparation of almost all exhibitions related to Plečnik's work, such as in Paris in 1986 and in Prague in 1996. He is the author of the exhibition Architect Oscar Niemeyer, Brasília.