The heart of folk art production in Vojvodina is located some fifty kilometers from Belgrade, in a village called Kovačica. Tucked into Serbia's southeastern Banat region, it is visited by several thousand tourists each year. This year, it is estimated that Kovačica will host some nine thousand visitors, both domestic and foreign.
By Zlatica Ivković
Photo by Dragan Bosnić |
| The village of Kovačica came into being more than two hundred years ago, when Slovak colonists – driven by harsh economic conditions and persecuted for religious reasons – left their homeland at the foot of Northern Carpathians and were granted permission by the Imperial Court in Vienna to settle in the southeastern Banat region. Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria, settled the Slovak colonists there in 1802 to act as border guards between the Austrian and the Ottoman Empires. Similarly, Serbs, Hungarians, Romanians, Romanies, Croats, and Ruthenians were settled there as well. Graced by their mutual respect and their willingness to cooperate with one another, they managed to coexist without compromising their respective languages, religions, customs, musical traditions, and so forth – despite the turbulent events that unsettled the Balkans for more than two centuries. |
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| Today, the region's inhabitants represent more than sixteen nations and ethnic minorities (the Slovaks are the most numerous and Kovačica is considered one of the social and cultural centers of Slovaks in Vojvodina). While they have retained their cultural and traditional characteristics – the fabric of their various ethnic cultures is still intact, they have also embarked on creating a new and unique culture which is flourishing through the production of local folk art. |
| As a result of their handiwork, the residents of Kovačica have gained an international reputation, particularly through the works of their folk art painters. They have been producing paintings for more than fifty consecutive years, and have appeared at collective exhibitions – putting Kovačica on the map of world folk art. For this reason, at the recommendation of the International Organization of Folk Art (IOV), an organization headquartered in Vienna that boasts 182 member-countries, Kovačica and its Etnocentar was entered onto UNESCO's Living Human Treasures list. |
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| In Kovačica, one can see but also buy hand-painted foot-stools; painted dried pumpkins; painted mirror frames; authentic souvenirs made of materials such as corn, hay, clay, wood, and fabric – not to mention, of course, the paintings made by renowned folk artists. In addition to the folk paintings, that are captivating in their colorful simplicity and induce feelings of serenity and contentedness in the viewer, a local culinary specialty also awaits guests in Kovačica. This is the Kovačica poppy seed strudel, and it simply must be tasted. | |
| One could say that it all began by accident, when approximately half a century ago (in 1952), as part of the celebrations marking the 150th anniversary of the founding of Kovačica, the first folk art exhibition was organized. In addition to showcasing village folk singers, folk dancers, and expert embroiderers, the village painters quietly entered the spotlight. Exhibitions featuring their works soon followed, as did the increasingly frequent visits made by government officials and foreign diplomats. As early as the 1980s, the folk art painters of Kovačica had already become a fixture of the Yugoslav and international folk art scene. |
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| In the past fifty-four years, each painter has bequeathed a painting to their village so that today Kovačica's collection boasts more than 500 folk art paintings. |
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At the time, the most notable folk painters from Kovačica were Ján Sokol, Mihal Bires and Martin Paluska – though it was Martin Jonas who achieved the greatest fame. Their paintings combine strictly traditional, folkloric elements.
Zuzana Chalupova appeared on the scene after those painters had already shot to fame. She was the first woman in Kovačica to trade in her needle and thread for a brush and paint. Very soon, her paintings were being admired in Paris, New York, Geneva, Hong Kong, Bratislava, Boston and other cities while millions of reproductions of her paintings circled the world on UNICEF greeting cards. |
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| "She was no more – or less – than a painter of that which is called "human life in its entirety"! That which for Picasso was an idea, and for Bacon remained an enigma – Chalupova literally transposed onto her canvases. That is where her folk wisdom lies. But, also where her greatness lies … Although she did not know much more about the world of art than Picasso or Bacon, art did not reward them as much as it rewarded her. Voltaire was certainly right in saying that he appreciated more the "unhappy" knowledge of India's Brahmans than the "happy" knowledge of a Breton peasant woman. However, having said that, he was not referring to just a sense of what human life is, but he was also referring to the experience of truly living life. In such an experience, the quantity of knowledge is not that which is most precious. Chalupova would certainly have nothing much to teach a philosopher, but a philosopher could learn a thing or two from her paintings." (Đorđe Kadijević) |
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Zuzana Veresky | |
| The upcoming exhibitions at the Babka gallery include: May 1-31 – exhibition of painted footstools; June 1-31 – exhibition of painted dried pumpkins; July 1-31 – exhibition of aquarelles (dedicated to fruits of the earth); October 1 – the grand annual exhibition. The gallery is open 365 days a year from 9 am to 4 pm. | |
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Popularized through the works of Zuzana Chalupova and Martin Jonas, Kovačica enjoyed the height of its commercial success and world acclaim in the 1970s and 1980s, thus paving the way for today's younger generation of painters, including Zuzana Veresky, Eva Husáriková, Pavel Hajko, Ján Glozik, Pavel Cicka, Ján Strakusek, Jan Bačúr, Marci Markov, Pavel Lavros, Ferencz Pataki, Adam Mezin, and others.
The Babka Art Gallery was founded in Kovačica in mid-1991 with the aim of assisting the younger generation of painters – in addition to young and talented folk artists who produce old and artistic handicrafts and authentic souvenirs. The Babka Gallery operates according to the UNESCO Living Human Treasures guidelines: it promotes the transfer of knowledge and skills from older generations to the younger ones, at not cost. The greatest recognition the gallery has received so far for its fifteen yeas of work (1991-2006) were the words of praise delivered by the Director-General of UNESCO, Koichiro Matsuura. |
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Zuzana Veresky | |
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At the opening of the exhibition at the UNESCO General Secretariat in Paris in 2003, he set out that he was particularly pleased with the exhibition, which reminded him just how important it is to cherish our cultural heritage and just how important it is to hand down tradition to the rising generations, dialogue notwithstanding. He proceeded to congratulate Mr. Babka for the mission he is fulfilling at the center he runs, namely to sustain and promote the artistic heritage of a small local community.
Today, Kovačica is regarded as Vojvodina’s epicenter of folk art production, while it marks nothing less than a metropolis on the map of folk art. Every year, several thousand guests visit Kovačica, a town with colorful houses and sky-blue gables, where inhabitants with a brush in hand can be spotted virtually down ever lane. As many as 3,500 tourists from the United States and some 3,000 tourists from European countries visited Kovačica last year. This year, an estimated nine thousand foreign and domestic visitors are expected. |
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