Vasko Pregelj (1948 - 1985) - Flashes *1968 - 40 years on

Vasko Pregelj: Deatil of Scenery for Films Fantazija, Marginalije and Utrinki, 1968-70

3 - 19 October 2008
Gallery Vžigalica - the gallery of the City Museum Ljubljana

Organized by the Museum of Modern Art in Ljubljana and kindly hosted by the City Museum of Ljubljana in its Gallery Vžigalica, this memorial exhibition puts on view fragments of the almost forgotten heritage of Vasko Pregelj (29 May 1948 - 8 July 1985), the prematurely deceased, highly talented filmmaker, photographer, painter, printmaker, and film writer.
The exhibition is part of the project "Hosting Moderna galerija!"

His early artistic endeavors date back to his high-school years; together with a number of friends and classmates from the Šubičeva Gimnazija high school he was a part of the group of artists Skupina 441, whose core members were the poets Denis Poniž, Ferdinand Miklavc, and Ivo Svetina. The group took its name after the number of Kocbek?s room in the loft of 10 Veselova ulica, where the young poets often found refuge; Vasko Pregelj's ceiling decoration is still there as a reminder of those days. Pregelj again joined the group for the theme issue no. 442 of the literary theory journal Problemi, written and published in the tumultuous autumn months of the legendary year 1968. Pregelj's contribution was an article entitled "Utrinki" (Flashes), whose title we have borrowed for our show; for the pictorial material he made a number of phantasmagoric photomontages that were to become characteristic of him. Later he dedicated himself to cinema and to writing about it, contributing extensively to the Slovenian film journal Ekran. He took part in numerous Slovenian and foreign amateur film festivals (starting as early as 1965) and won a number of awards.

The exhibition presents "flashes" ? a reconstruction of unfortunately only partially preserved artifacts for film sets, which were exhibited in 1972 in Moderna galerija as part of the Atelje '72 (Studio '72) exhibition, and screenings of Pregelj's major films. Thus we will again have an opportunity to see Rekvijem (Requiem, 1966) and Marginalije (Marginalia, 1968), films devoted to the creativity of Vasko's father Marij Pregelj, then the award-winning Staro dvorišče (Old Courtyard, 1967), and a number of earlier black-and-white films which were thought to have been lost. They were restored for this exhibition by Borko Radešček.

The closing event will be the presentation of the catalogue, in which Pregelj's above-mentioned article "Utrinki" from Problemi no. 442 will be reprinted, and two longer texts, reminiscences of his friends Denis Poniž, Ph.D., and Ivo Svetina.

Exhibition curator: Breda Ilich Klančnik
Assistant from the City Museum Ljubljana: Metka Simončič

The exhibition is supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia

Opening hours: Tuesday-Sunday, from 10 am to 6 pm

→  Hosting MG! Archive