The fundamental reconstitution of interest groups and the distribution of spheres of influence after 1989  also reached the world of art. This was related to the fall of the original economic and organizational structure of the old regime and the social obligation of the new establishment.  The position of the artist was naturally updated in the complicated situation following 1989, when the structure of the entire society underwent a deep transformation – the artist’s place and role also changed.  Culture and art in the new context of a depoliticized economy (Žižek) had to cope with the question of the justification of the original guardian existence and ties to the power of the Party and the state. The revolution which led to the separation of the artistic world from the political and ideological world took place at two levels –first, art was liberated from the obligation to fulfill its original social role; second, new value systems were established which gradually felt at home also in the sphere of art through market mechanisms.  

The reorganization of artistic life led artists to a new context – they attain apparent freedom and independence, yet lose their foundation and state guarantees, the security of a comfortable income and social securities. For the previous forty years, artists were civil servants (in the area of visual culture); after the fall of the regime they were surprised by pragmatic questions related to their own existence. Their lack of preparedness to deal with the new market reality and the anonymity of the independent private consumer, the struggle in which everybody  must fend for themselves and against everyone in order to please the spectator brought an ambivalent relation to the market and its possibilities.   

The necessary link between a work of art and its monetary value, the pragmatic “attaching of a price tag” (Forgács, 2004, s. 213) s. → p. became a crucial moment in the post-revolution period. The fact that in the past regime art was sold was unquestionable. The visible form (official network of Dielo shops) of state merchandizing was understandably off limits for the free, authentic and autonomous work of former outsiders of the regime. Cooperating with Dielo shops was understood by the underground as the discrediting subservience to both the regime and the market.  The sudden possibility to do business which became official and the new artistic canon just for effect triggered embarrassment and cognitive and moral conflict.  Therefore, the degree of acceptance or rejection of the commercial aspect of art dependent on market mechanisms – strict distancing from their practices or on the contrary, reluctant submission to their pressure, became the  main dilemma of artists, particularly those banned by the regime, who in terms of critical and commercial acceptance moved  upstairs from the basement  (Zuzana Bartošová)  In addition to the understandable independence of the state power, this traumatic coping with the market reality and its transparency (competition regardless of political or other merits) also brought a new form of personal involvement (the artist as market stakeholder, creator and owner of the artwork). In a sense, we can even talk about reducing the overall post-revolution transformation of art to overcoming this mental attitude – the myth of creating art in a “grey zone” only for one’s own purposes. (Morganová, 2010, s. 74) 

Establishing a market democracy and its “impersonal sanctioning mechanisms” (Bourdieu, 2010, s. 84) brought the evaluation of artwork through financial compensation and definitively did away with the original hierarchy built on an internal organization of various levels of distancing or involvement within the past regime.  The unofficial scene, similar to the socialist economy, did not produce (art) for the consumer; its products were not connected with monetary value because distribution channels were closed to it. It lacked contact with a competitive environment and only acknowledged demand coming from the production itself. (Bourdieu, 2010, s. 191) It officially rejected success and the lack of interest in market affairs was a certain strategy adopted by some artists to avoid direct confrontation. Representatives of the grey zone considered money (in connection to art) as vulgar; they accepted their status as dissident icons and they were used to experiencing success without the general public.   

The artist as well as the critic, collector and dealer went from “the cage to the marketplace”¹⁰  and operations of the Slovak art market began to be more dynamic in the transformation phase between the years 1989 and 1993. The original two-polar distribution was replaced by standard dealer-related elements of the market – private galleries (1990-1991) and auction houses (from 1996). It is natural that private galleries were first. Under standard conditions, they represented the basis of the market structure; moreover, in our country “gallery” sales had their tradition and permanent audience – a wide, non-oriented and, in terms of taste, undifferentiated group. Running a private gallery at the beginning of the 1990s was uncharted territory for the owners and most of these initiatives only lasted for a few years. In addition to the muted reaction of the collecting public, gallery owners struggled to reach the appropriate target groups (banks, private companies, emigrants, state collecting institutions). This sluggish status was also supported by the habit to purchase art directly from the studio of artists, thus bypassing dealers which slowed the development of standard commercial relations.  Despite the failure of the commercial activities of the first galleries, the activity of the primary (proto)market was a serious alternative to the stagnating state sector. Although not a single dealer from the first generation of gallery owners “brought” new artists to the market, formed public opinion or managed to enter international grounds through his gallery, these private initiatives were an important step towards the standard operations of private dealer activities.  The true awakening of gallery activities in Slovakia occurred only in the second half of the “zero” years, due to the shift of numerous activities of artists towards the growing market.  

Collectors who cultivated their collections, even during the previous regime, made themselves visible in a decisive way and assumed crucial competences in this cultural vacuum  - they conducted numerous presentations and educational events along with publication and association activities and inspired new interested parties, beginning with the community of their acquaintances and co-workers. Three collectors were critical in this process –Ivan Melicherčík (1944),  a foreign correspondent for the press agency, Jan Kukal (1942)  a former tennis player and coach and Ivan Zubaľ (1939) a lawyer.

Melicherčík’s scope of activities was relatively broad; he began collecting in 1977, and after the fall of Communism he enthusiastically promoted collecting.  In fact, for many years he was the chairman of the Society of Collectors. Recently, he has focused exclusively on African art and currently strives to publicly present his collection of more than 500 ritual statues and masks. Melicherčík repeatedly mentions the term delirium collectoris, i.e., a kind of collecting passion or irrational behavior, and indirectly describes the contemporary collector as lacking this feature. He is referring to the dramatic change in the composition of collectors and the massive influx of new, financially motivated investors. 

Jan Kukal entered the limited community of domestic collectors relatively swiftly in the middle of the 1980s.  He focused on the key representatives of the unofficial scene – informel tendencies and new figuration in particular, and despite his amateur background he quickly built up a valuable and extensive collection. This was possible due to the friendly relationships that he had developed with artists, his sincere interest in art (he gladly and frequently visited artists personally), and available finances at his disposal. His purchases in the 1980s supported and subsidized many artists outside the official scene. After 1989, he became active as a manager.  He has organized many demanding exhibition projects that are extremely attractive for the audience and has a long standing working relationship with the Bratislava City Gallery. He has never presented any of his collection in public, and when loaning works he is reluctant to provide information on their provenience. 

Ivan Zubaľ owns a quality and extensive art collection that has been consistently built over decades. As opposed to the majority of domestic collectors whose activities have largely gone unnoticed by the next generation, his sons are also developing their own collecting ambitions. The LINEA Collection is built on the great names of domestic art from the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century; it is comprised of the artwork of key representatives of Slovak Modernism, but recently, thanks to Roman Zubaľ, it has also inclined towards contemporary art, especially alternative art. The small but continuously active contemporary art gallery on the premises of the family’s firm is a secondary expression of this interest. The recent establishment of the public park of sculptures from the family estate and the Slovak National gallery is another noteworthy impulse. 

The beginnings of the new Slovak collecting are logically related to the development of the domestic art market. After the failure of the first galleries in the 1990s, it is ironic that auction houses became the first institutions to succeed in stimulating these activities. SOGA, the first Slovak auction company, was founded in 1996, and from the very beginning it strategically presented itself as a new, hybrid type of institution, somewhere between galleries and auction houses, connoisseurship and business, simply between commercial companies and non-commercial institutions. If Warhol once claimed “you need a good gallery so that the rising classes will notice you” (Wrenn, 1993, p. 87), in terms of the wild 1990s, auctions were even more effective. This ideal combination of spectacle and social event ensured critical interest, motivated at first by curiosity.  The introduction of auctions opened space for the ostentatious purchase of artwork by financially secure individuals who quickly put together the first sets of their collections in an environment almost without competition.  

The scene was dominated by amateur, uninformed collectors who were stubbornly guided by their own taste or intuition, did not consult with experts, purchased impulsively and expensively, and virtually never acquired through exchanges.  They were more interested in rapid expansion and not the cultivation of their collections. Their activities were exclusively one-generational. They sold their collections with the same speed as they acquired them.  It was not uncommon for them to suddenly become disenchanted with a collection, take advantage of the opportunity to sell it for a profit and then completely change the direction of their collection focus. Most of these collectors remained conservative in their preferences. At the beginning, the undernourished collecting base was not very active and the market supply was small. Artwork did not circulate and the tradition of repeated sales was not established.  This had a negative impact on the limited number of artists who were able to operate commercially and thus also professionally (and vice versa) in Slovakia. It also explains why interest continues to focus on Slovak Modernism and folk motifs. This is a natural phenomenon because our market is local, was closed for a long period of time and lacks living examples of “great collectors” or international overlaps. The core of the generation of collectors is gradually disintegrating; several have sold their entire collections and left the territory without a trace.    

However, there was an important parallel process - a wider middle layer has gradually risen by purchasing “affordable” art. Thus a new type of a more cultivated collector has emerged; one who with great care selects less expensive, but still rare and precious works from auction collections and galleries. These representatives of the rising middle class, discreetly continue to develop their collections away from the public eye.   Their ambitions grow stronger as years pass, and they view the process of the gradual creation of a new whole as more thrilling than purchasing.  This phenomenon is recently being supported by The Roman Fecik Gallery. The open aim of this institution is to systematically develop the tradition of private collecting and patronage in Slovakia. It regularly provides space to smaller, as yet unknown collections of “discreet” collectors, maps their activities and thus accents the phenomenon of collecting in our geographical space.  

By the end of the 1990s, corporate collecting began to be active along with the acceleration of private initiatives. 1. Slovenská investičná skupina (1st Slovak Investment Group), whose collection activities have been guided by art historian Zuzana Bartošová since 1992, has become an influential player in the developing art market. This is the result of Bartošová’s excellent contacts within the unofficial scene, her well-defined expert opinion and cultivated taste. Her strategy is based on the natural assumption that the price of art will go up and in the future will become unaffordable for domestic institutions. During her entire collecting career at the 1st Slovak Investment Group she has successfully applied the approach of purchasing not where the market is already closed or where artwork is “sold out,”  but where there is still room for selection. This is one of the reasons why this collection, aside from those of state galleries, is one of the most critically valued.  Moreover, Bartošová consistently cares for its long-term development through permanent publication activities and exhibitions, particularly abroad.  

Elesko manages one of the most extensive and significant private collections. The core of its portfolio is represented by the top selection of Slovak and Czech Modernist paintings, a large collection of the works of Andy Warhol and a set of contemporary alternative Slovak art. This corporation established two representative exhibition spaces for its collection – the Zoya Gallery’s permanent exposition of Slovak Modernism is situated in the Edődy Palace in the center of Bratislava, and the grandiose Zoya Musem exhibition complex (open to the public since 2009), designated for short-term exhibition projects and presentations of new acquisitions, is situated in Modra, 30 kilometers from the capital. The energy of this entity diminished after its glorious entry on the collecting scene and robust acquisition activities. In a similar way, after bombastic and internationally outlined projects, exhibition dramaturgy has returned to the domestic milieu  and profiles itself somewhere between the commercial  (cooperation with the Jiří Švestka Gallery) and institutional (management of the Slovak National Gallery) framework. 

The private Nedbalka Gallery made a big splash on the scene in October 2012 thanks to the two years of collecting activities of Pavol Paška, one of the founding members of the software company Eset. The grandiose philanthropic act of providing public access to the building itself (the Slovak Guggenheim) in Bratislava’s historic center immediately won favor with the general public. In addition to the respectable “domestic” collection of Artur Bartoška and Peter Paška, the gallery features artwork owned by Bohumil Hanzel and Patrik Gerža. The shortcomings of the permanent exposition include its fluctuating level, obviously determined by the accelerated pace of its acquisition activities and the limits of the domestic art market.  On the other hand, the continuous exhibition and promotional activities and highly professional approach in every activity are laudable. Although this institution definitively prefers conservative values and overlaps to contemporary art are rather unique, its founders are definitely heading towards expert profiling. Their personal enthusiasm and financial allocations for the comprehensive operations of this gallery are promising and represent an important impulse for the cultural life in Bratislava.  

There are several private initiatives with a very focused specialization: the Milan Dobeš Museum situated on three floors of the building in Bratislava’s historic center, regularly organizes international exhibition projects dedicated to Constructivism and neo-Constructivism in addition to the permanent exposition of Dobeš’s works and the collection of global Constructivism.  In a similar way, at the beginning of his collecting career, Igor Krejčí (the owner of the ArtBid auction house and the Art Capital Gallery) was strictly oriented on geometric and Constructivist tendencies in Slovak visual art after 1960. The SOGA auction house manages a quality collection of conceptual art of the 1960s to the 1980s, and features a set of almost 50 key works of Július Koller. Pavol Vajs, a collector and exclusive supporter of contemporary art, is the owner of the White and Weiss auction house, the only auction company which is systematically oriented on contemporary art.

The activity of Gerhard H. Meulensteen, a Dutch collector, represents the only significant foreign initiative in Slovakia. In 2000, he completed the construction of a separate gallery project in the attractive Danube River environment next to the Čuňovo dam. Danubiana Gallery has an abundant (unbalanced in terms of quality) exhibition program and publication activities which take into consideration the taste of the founder rather than expert criteria. Its collection of international painting, contemporary Slovak art and exterior sculpture has developed over a relatively long period of time. In 2012, in a surprising move and despite protests from part of the fine art community, Danubiana was transformed into a non-profit, public service museum institution whose majority stockholder was the state. The new addition which is designed to house the permanent expositions of modern and contemporary Slovak and European art is near completion.  

The activity of the Foundation – Contemporary Art Center (formerly the Soros center), which in 2003 carried out the first independent auction of contemporary art in cooperation with SOGA Auction Company, made a noteworthy contribution to the development of the domestic market and collecting. This auction was intended to commemorate the ten years of the Foundation’s existence and introduce contemporary art to the inexperienced domestic market.  At first, the response of collectors was minimal, but nowadays there is a noticeable but not extremely conceptual shift of interest from more traditional art expressions towards contemporary art.  This is also related to the emergence of a young wealthy generation and pragmatic calculation – most of the works of the key representatives of Slovak Modernism became part of state collections in the past, and the prices of the works of major representatives of the 1960s are gradually but significantly growing – practically speaking, the most sought after artists are physically and financially unaffordable for a regular collector.  

The fundamental expansion of Slovak collecting is closely related to the consolidation of society and the swift development of the domestic art market. SOGA’s monopoly has been weakened by the emergence of new auction houses and galleries. Ironically, most of them were founded by active collectors who served as renowned collectors and dealers at the same time.  Numerous artist run spaces have also become important agents, while several banks have openly declared their interest in and support for art. The activity of private collectors has also risen sharply thanks to new players in the market.  Collectors have become more systematic and pragmatic – we are witnesses of the natural “cleansing” of older collections, the gradual re-evaluation of collections, and the sale and exchange of works from the estate of the founding generation. We have also noticed the first attempts to boost the value of collections and the effort to communicate outcomes publicly.  We are beginning to feel the growing pressure of collectors on curators at state institutions, the desire to be seen, and the effort to incorporate works in specialized exhibitions.  Collectors’ exhibitions have become a regular event at many private and public galleries; there is even a specialized course at the Art Academy designed to educate new purchasers of art.  The number of collectors is growing from year to year, and the prices of top gallery works of key artists have risen geometrically. Collecting has become a financially demanding activity, the manifestation of a cultivated lifestyle and a prestigious ticket to higher society.  More importantly, it is a sign that 25 years after our historic revolution, we are gradually moving toward European standards. 

10 Cited according to (Bakoš, Doslov: Z klietky na trhovisko, 1999)