The exhibition One Thing Is Sacred: Simple and Authentic establishes a dialogue between Kosovel’s poetry and the works of Lojze Spacal, Vladimir Makuc and Valentin Oman — paintings, prints, and tapestries that reflect their similar ethic standpoint.
The exhibition – partly installed at the Kosovel Cultural Centre Sežana and partly at the Lojze Spacal Gallery at Štanjel Castle – is not conceived as an ilustration of the poetry, but more as an encounter of equal artistic language. Štanjel, as a Karst landscape with a strong historical and symbolic layering, is not merely the setting of the exhibition but its conceptual foundation. Just as the Karst was for Kosovel a space of concentration, austerity and inner tension, so too is art here placed within an environment that does not permit superficiality.
Alongside Kosovel’s poems, works by Valentin Oman, Lojze Spacal and Vladimir Makuc are exhibited – paintings, prints and tapestries. Being conscious of the simplicity and faithful to their inner urges is what they all have in common.
About artists
Srečko Kosovel (1904–1926)
Srečko Kosovel was born in 1904 in Sežana. He attended elementary school in Tomaj, where his family had lived since 1908. In 1916, he continued his studies at the Realka High School in Ljubljana, which he completed in 1922, after which he enrolled in the study of Slavic and Romance languages at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana. He did not complete his studies, as he died at the age of just 22 from meningitis.
Despite his short life, Kosovel left behind a substantial and stylistically diverse body of work, which, in addition to poetry, includes prose poems, manifestos, essays, journalistic texts, diary entries and letters. The discovery of his literary estate has been gradual: from his first collection Pesmi (1927), through the Zbrana dela (1946–1977) and the collection of his avant-garde poetry Integrali ’26 (1967), up to 2019, when the remaining part of Kosovel’s oeuvre was published in the book Vsem naj bom neznan.
Lojze Spacal (1907–2000)
Born in 1907 in Trieste, Italy, Lojze Spacal completed his studies at the Art Lyceum in Venice in 1934 and continued his education at the Institute of Decorative Arts in Monza. His work is characterized by a profound fidelity to the Karst region and a reduced visual language in which ethical stance and spatial awareness are closely intertwined. He received the Prešeren Award in 1974 and posthumously the Rihard Jakopič Award. He exhibited extensively in solo and group exhibitions. A permanent collection of his works (donation) is on display at the Lojze Spacal Gallery in Štanjel. He died in Trieste in 2000.
Vladimir Makuc (1925–2016)
Born in 1925 in Solkan, Vladimir Makuc graduated in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana in 1954 and completed a specialization in restoration and conservation in 1956. He worked across painting, printmaking, sculpture and tapestry, developing a distinctive visual language marked by symbolic concentration and restraint. He received numerous awards for his work, including the Prešeren Fund Award (1962), the Prešeren Award (1979) and the Rihard Jakopič Award (1987). He exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions in Slovenia and abroad. A substantial collection of his works was donated to the Museum of Gorizia. He died in 2016.
Valentin Oman (1935)
Born in 1935 in Bekštanj, Austria, Valentin Oman graduated in painting from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna in 1962 and completed a specialization in printmaking at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana the following year. The human figure occupies a central place in his work, approached with restraint and a pronounced ethical orientation. He has received numerous awards and honors, including the Prešeren Fund Award (1981) and the Jakopič Award (1997). The most extensive donation of his works is held by the Prešeren Award Winners of Fine Arts Gallery Kranj. He lives and works in Bekštanj and Vienna.
