Arts - Slovenia - page 475

For baroque sculpture, look at Jožef Straub's plague pillar in Maribor, the golden altar
in the Church of the Annunciation at Crngrob, or the work of Francesco Robba in
Ljubljana (Carniolan Rivers fountain at the National Gallery). Fortunat Bergant, who
painted the Stations of the Cross in the church at Stična Abbey, was a master of baroque
painting.
The most important painters of the 19th century include the impressionists Rihard
Jakopič, Matija Jama, Ivan Grohar and Matej Sternen, who exhibited together in Ljubljana
in 1900. In the 20th century, the expressionist school of Božidar Jakac and the brothers
France and Tone Kralj gave way to the sculptors Alojzij Gangl, Franc Berneker, Jakob
Savinšek and Lojze Dolinar. Favourite artists to emerge after WWII include Janez Bernik,
Rudi Španzel and Jože Tisnikar.
From the 1980s and onward postmodernist painting and sculpture has been dominated
by the artists' cooperative Irwin, part of the wider multimedia group Neue Slowenische
Kunst (NSK). Among notable names today are the artist Tadej Pogačar, sculptor Marjetica
Potrč and video artists Marko Peljhan and Marina Gržinič.

Cinema
Slovenia was never on the cutting edge of film-making as were some of the former
Yugoslav republics (such as Croatia). However, it still managed to produce award-win-
ning films such as Jože Gale's Kekec (1951) and France Štiglic's Dolina Miru ( Valley of
Peace , 1955).

What is now touted as the 'Spring of Slove-
nian Film' in the late 1990s was heralded by
two films: Ekspres, Ekspres ( Express, Express
, 1997) by Igor Šterk, an award-winning 'rail-
road' film and farce, and Autsajder ( Outsider ,
1997), by Andrej Košak, about the love
between a Slovenian girl and Bosnian 'outsider'.
Subsequent successes include: Kruh in Mleko ( Bread and Milk , 2001), the tragic story
of a dysfunctional small-town family by Jan Cvitkovič; Sašo Podgoršek's Sladke Sanje (
Sweet Dreams , 2001), a coming-of-age piece set in 1970s Yugoslavia; and Damjan Ko-
zole's Rezerni Deli ( Spare Parts , 2003) about the trafficking of illegal immigrants
through Slovenia from Croatia to Italy by a couple of embittered misfits. More recent (and
lighter) fare is Cvitkovič's Odgrobadogroba ( Grave Hopping , 2006), an Oscar-nomin-
ated tragicomedy about a professional funeral speaker; Petelinji Zajtrk ( Rooster's Break-
fast , 2007), a romance by Marko Naberšnik set in Gornja Radgona on the Austrian border

The website of the Slovenian Film Fund
( www.film-sklad.si ) will tell you everything you
need to know about films and filming in Slovenia.