Danubiana - a gem in the middle of the Danube

Less than 20 km from Bratislava, almost on the border of Slovakia, Austria and Hungary, a "ship" full of art floats on the Danube. The wave that washes it gracefully follows it. Thanks to its unique location, it is visited annually by more than 60,000 domestic and foreign art admirers. Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum will celebrate its 20th birthday this year and the exhibition it is preparing for this occasion will definitely be worth it! The story leading to the creation of Danubiana began many years ago, when its founder Vincent Polakovič first encountered Vincent Van Gogh's work "Ravens over a Cornfield" at the age of seven. "I became interested in his work, post-impressionism, fine arts and everything related to it. When the Gentle Revolution came in 1989 and the opportunity to do what one enjoys came, I decided to take a journey in the footsteps of van Gogh. I visited all the places where this famous Dutch painter lived, and later I built and opened the first private gallery in Slovakia in Poprad, which was named Vincent van Gogh's Yellow House," says the director of Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum , Vincent Polakovič.

Originally a lawyer working as an investigator at the District Prosecutor's Office, Vincent Polakovič, with his own passion, embarked on gallery work, only to find himself on the verge of bankruptcy a year after opening the gallery. Thanks to a lucky coincidence, in late 1994 he met the Dutch collector and art supporter Gerard Meulensteen, who helped him settle his debts and fulfill his desire for something much greater than the Yellow House. "I had energy to spare and I wanted to build a modern art museum. The kind of museum that the Louisiana Museum in Denmark, which I visited, was like for me. That's why I set out from Poprad to Bratislava in the spring of 1999 with the aim of finding a place to build my dream museum. I walked along the Danube from Devín to Čunovo. When I saw the majesty of the waterworks and the peninsula on which the museum stands today, I knew that if my dream Danubiana was to stand somewhere in Slovakia, it could not be anywhere else but here. That place was literally like a magical revelation to me."

Boat with a wave

With the financial support of Gerard Meulensteen, a museum in the shape of a ship – a Roman galley – was built on the peninsula near Čunovo in 2000, and its architect was Ing. Peter Žalman. However, the gradual interest of the general public expected the museum to not only offer temporary exhibitions, which changed in regular quarterly cycles, but also to present a permanent collection. So the founders of the museum decided to complete its construction. “We approached students from the Eindhoven University of Technology and architecture students in Bratislava to outline a vision of how our peninsula could be completed. For this purpose, we prepared a two-day workshop. The winning proposal was ultimately the idea of ​​Ing. Ján Kukuľa, who outlined a low extension in the shape of a wave next to the Danubiana Museum, which seemed to wash over the original building, while the latter would not lose any of its dominance in the future. We liked that very much,” describes Vincent Polakovič.

When founder Gerard Meulensteen later decided to dedicate his museum to Slovakia, together with the Ministry of Culture of the Slovak Republic, they created a non-profit organization whose task was not only to continue organizing exhibitions in this exceptional space, but mainly to successfully implement the aforementioned completion of the museum, for which the founders received financial resources from the Slovak Government. The entire work was completed and handed over to the public in September 2014, and in the same year an international jury awarded this completion the "Building of the Year 2014" award in the Slovak Republic. Danubiana has gradually become a new symbol of modern Bratislava, as evidenced not only by its general popularity with the public, but also by the fact that in 2016 it won the Július Satinský "Bratislava Blueberry" award.

In the 20 years that we have existed, we have held more than 150 exhibitions at Danubian, presenting over 1,000 artists from 43 countries around the world.

The exhibitions I have organized as a gallerist over the past thirty years, not only in domestic but also in foreign galleries and museums, have been visited by more than a million visitors. I have published several dozen catalogues and books about artists whose works I have gradually introduced to the general public.

Artistic elite

Danubiana is primarily intended to arouse interest in art in visitors and popularize it. "Some critics of Danubiana say that we represent the middle class. Of course! After all, that is what our mission is. We do not want to make alternative exhibitions for "three people". Perhaps a small gallery in the center of Bratislava can afford and present such projects. If we want visitors to come to us by car, bus, or boat, we must offer them something that will excite them and convince them to come to us again next time. We simply cannot afford experiments. We choose the artists we exhibit primarily according to their quality, but also the style with which we present ourselves as a museum to the public. We are a museum of modern art and not a Center for Contemporary Art or a Kunsthalle. Every year we receive numerous offers from Slovakia and abroad, from artists, curators, or from partner museums and galleries, and it is then up to the museum management and the board of directors to prepare a dramaturgy of exhibitions for our visitors that will guarantee not only a high aesthetic experience for the public, but also attendance, which will subsequently guarantee the very existence of the museum from an economic point of view. I don't pretend to be an art expert, but I must have some artistic sensibility after all the years I've been involved in art. For me, it has always been and still is of primary importance that exceptional Slovak artists at the beginning of the 21st century have the opportunity to exhibit their works in representative spaces and, above all, in international competition. I would be happy if visitors would leave us not only satisfied, but also enthusiastic about what a cultural country Slovakia is. And everyone can see this after looking at Danubiana,” says Vincent Polakovič. “I have been involved in art for 30 years. I observe how artists create not only abroad, but also what a unique concentration of exceptional artists is currently in Slovakia. In many ways, it reminds me of Paris at the beginning of the 20th century, when Picasso, Modigliani, Braque, Gris, Chagall and many others lived there. This is what is happening in Slovakia today, across all artistic styles and generations of artists. There is an incredible pressure of quality. The only problem is that their exhibitions are very difficult to get into foreign museums. I am convinced that when we offer foreign artists the opportunity to present themselves here, our artists will also get the opportunity to present themselves there. This is a custom that applies everywhere in the world. That is why we are trying to get as many foreign artists here as possible.”

Over the past 20 years, names such as Joan Miró, El Lissitzky, Sam Francis, Hermann Nitsch, Karel Appel, Antoni Clavé, and Magdalena Abakanowicz have exhibited at Danubian.

Traffic is increasing

"When an exhibition in Slovakia has more than 17,000 visitors, it's an incredible number. Individual exhibitions last two to three months, rarely four." The current monthly visitor count at Danubiana is now about 5,000 paying customers, when the museum opened there were 200 to 300. In the summer, the number of visitors climbs to 7,000 per month. The daily record for the number of visitors is 700. "Despite the increase in visitors, we still want the museum to have a human dimension and not be crowded. We do not want our visitors to walk in a line of hundreds of visitors from painting to painting, as we can see in some renowned foreign museums. On the contrary, we want our guest to feel from the first moment spent at the museum reception that he is the most important person to us. We also try to create exhibitions with the fact that young families with children like to visit us. In addition, we are one of the few museums that allows dogs to enter."

The Danubiany exhibition space has an exterior area of ​​20,000 square meters, and the museum interior has an area of ​​4,000 square meters. Every visitor can also walk on the walkable roof with a unique view of the Alps and the Little Carpathians. There are 60 sculptures by artists from all over the world in the Danubiany park. "Over the past three years, our attendance has increased by 100%, and if it were to increase by another 100% in the next three years, there would be a lot of people. We would have to start regulating it somehow, which would not be very comfortable. We believe that by then we will have completed the construction of other pavilions, the concept of which we have already prepared. Visitors would be able to spread out in them, and there would eventually be enough space. Then every visitor could spend even a whole day with us."

The premises will be expanded

Currently, Danubiana organizes about 20 exhibitions a year. The exhibiting “guest” artists are complemented by works from the private collection of the museum’s co-founder Gerard Meulensteen. “We have about 2,000 works available, which we use to appropriately complement the current exhibitions. Mr. Meulensteen has works by 50 Slovak authors in his collection, mostly artists he had the opportunity to know personally. Each work reminds him of something in his life. He has never bought a painting by Picasso, whom he did not know personally, but he has bought works by Paul Jenkins, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Karel Apello and many others. Among Slovak authors in his collection you can find works by Jozef Jankovič, Miroslav Cipár, Vladimír Kompánek, Rudolf Sikora, Vlad Popovič, Peter Pollág, Oto Bachorík, Ivan Pavle, Sveť Ilavský, Milan Lukáč and others.” The current collection of the museum itself already includes dozens of works by artists who have exhibited at Danubian in recent years.

The plan is to build a Pavilion for Youth, which would serve as a space for artists under the age of 40. Danubiana will present the works of these artists on the occasion of its 20th anniversary. "On September 5, 2020, we will open a large joint exhibition of selected graduates of the Academy of Fine Arts from 2000 to today. We will present one work from each artist. In total, more than 100 works by very talented artists. The variety and genre diversity will certainly be greatly appreciated by the domestic and foreign public," expects Vincent Polakovič. The fairytale space behind Bratislava offers not only a space for perceiving art as such, but also a space for relaxation, inspiration, and pleasant encounters. As Ľubomír Feldek writes in his poem:

By the beautiful blue Danube is the city of Bratislava and below it the Danubiana, the museum that floats.

Here the Danube rocks in splendor, a gift for future times and changes the Roman galley, to the beauty gallery.

The Danube sways those paintings and statues, The exhibition at Danubiana is magical.

The Danube sways those paintings and statues, What a crowd gathers around them from all corners of the world.

Which many queens admired.

Lubomír Feldek