Andy Warhol Exhibition
The exhibition of one of the founders of pop art in the world, Andy Warhol, is organized by the Dubrovnik-Neretva County in cooperation with the Dubrovnik Art Gallery and the Andy Warhol Museum of Modern Art from Slovakia. Andy Warhol’s works from the Andy Warhol Museum of Modern Art will be exhibited at the exhibition, including photographs and silkscreens on paper and canvas. The exhibition maps, presents and professionally displays not only the life and works of Andy Warhol, but also current trends in visual art and culture, the influence of the artist’s ethnic origin on his work, the influence of pop-art on current art and related topics. The curators of the exhibition are Michal Bycko, Martin Cubjak and Jelena Tamindžija Donnart.
Andy Warhol was born on August 6, 1928 in Pittsburgh in a family of Ruthenian immigrants from the village of Miková near Medzilaborc. He had two older brothers: Paul (born 1922, died 2014) and John (born 1925, died 2010). His father, Andrej Varchola, or Andrew Warhol (born in 1886, died in 1942) was a worker and miner, and his mother, Júlia Varcholová, or Julia Warhola (born in 1892, died in 1972), instilled in her children respect for religion, family and traditional values. They lived very modestly and regularly went to Greek Catholic mass celebrations.
Thanks to Andy Warhol’s brothers John and Paul and Fred Hughes as representatives of the Andy Warhol Foundation in New York, and on the initiative of Dr. sc. Michal Byck, the museum in Medzilaborac was founded as a transregionally specific institution of the museum-gallery type, and deals with current trends in contemporary art and especially the life and work of Andy Warhol.
The founding of the Andy Warhol Museum of Modern Art in Medzilaborac was preceded by the activities of Dr. sc. Michal Byck, first in the Small Gallery of the Friends of Art Club connected to the branch of Visual Art of the National School of Art and later in the organization of the Andy Warhol Society in Medzilaborac. During the existence of these institutions, the people involved, despite the former political regime, managed to collect a lot of different materials and authentic documents that are now part of the Foundation’s collection and the Museum’s archives.
The Ministry of Culture officially founded the Museum in 1991, and since April 1, 2002, it has been taken care of by the higher territorial unit of Prešov self-government.
The Andy Warhol Museum of Modern Art in Medzilaborac (MMUAW) was founded in 1991 as the first museum in the world dedicated to the king of pop art. Today, the museum is a specific transregional institution of the museum-gallery type, which mainly deals with current trends in contemporary art and especially with the life and work of Andy Warhol.
The museum conceptually maps, presents and professionally displays not only the life and works of Andy Warhol, but also current trends in visual art and culture, the influence of an artist’s ethnicity on his work, the influence of pop art on current art and related topics.
The museum is the largest central collection of paintings and artifacts by Andy Warhol in Slovakia, it is an authority among museums, and it meets the expectations of both professionals and the general public with its unique position on the international scene.
The museum has been under the jurisdiction of the self-governing region of Prešov since April 1, 2002.