Gong gallery summer salon

Published: 16.8.2025

The Gong Gallery in Ostrava's Dolní Vítkovice has prepared an exceptional exhibition titled Summer Salon – Something for Everyone, which offers a diverse cross-section of fine art across generations, techniques and continents. From lyrical landscapes to iconic pop art to contemporary conceptual installations. The exhibition opened on July 31 and will run until September 30, 2025.

“This is an unprecedented exhibition in terms of its breadth and diversity. When we, as a curatorial duo with Zdeněk Sklenář, started preparing it, we had no idea how far our own intention would take us. Everyone will truly find something interesting and stimulating for themselves here,” says the exhibition's curator, Jan Světlík.

Landscape in Many Forms

Czech landscape painting, both classic and innovative, is presented in the exhibition through the works of Antonín Slavíček and Jan Trampota, two fundamental figures of Czech modern art. Trampota's paintings stand out for their quiet simplicity and perfect sense of composition, which comes from everyday contact with nature. Inspired by impressionism, Slavíček was able to capture light with such intensity that his paintings perfectly encapsulate the atmosphere itself – changeable and alive. The selection is complemented by other landscape artists such as Karel Holub, Václav Březina and Michal Matzenauer, who bring new approaches – from melancholic moods to poetic geometry. The selection of landscape artists is not only a tribute to tradition, but also an example of how even the “classic” genre is constantly evolving – depending on who is looking, where they are looking from, and what they want to see in the landscape.

The Fame and Tragedy of Marilyn

Warhol's Marilyn: both radiant and disturbing. This is how one of the highlights of the exhibition could be described. The famous depiction of Marilyn Monroe by Andy Warhol, the founder of American pop art, comes from a series created in 1967 at Warhol's printing house Factory Additions. Each of the screen prints was created from five rasters – one photographic and four in color. Warhol deliberately played with off-register printing, creating an image that is both an illusion of fame and its shadow. One of the prints on display combines only black and silver, as if the actress was stepping out of a black-and-white movie screen – a symbol of fame and tragedy at the same time. Warhol said of this: “The more you look at the same thing, the more the meaning disappears – and the better and emptier you feel.”

Poland and Geometry

Oscillating and fascinating Polish geometry. This is the imaginary title accompanying the other works on display. From Poland to Gong comes the works of Tamara Berdowska, who works on the border between op-art and minimalist abstraction. Her paintings seem calm at first glance, but upon longer observation they literally begin to vibrate – oscillating between precise geometry and organic intuition. Her structured compositions evoke tension between order and emotion, logic and feeling. Berdowská thus shows that even a purely visual form can carry a deep inner meaning.

Big names

The Summer Salon brings contrasts of classics and contemporary art from home and abroad in the form of big names such as Salvador Dalí, Oskar Kokoschka, Jan and Eva Švankmajer or Zhang Xiaogang, with prominent contemporary artists such as Krištof Kintera, Ivana Štenclová, Michal Rittstein, Yue Minjun, the master of the ironic smile, or Hans Glattfelder. “From objects and installations to figuration and analytical painting – each of the authors brings their own unique statement about the world we live in,” conclude the exhibition curators.