Je to znamenie doby
It’s a Sign of the Times

Summary/Abstract: This study analyses the position of Slovak painting after 1989 in relation to the cultural, political, and theoretical transformations that followed the end of state socialism. It argues that the medium’s marginal status in the 1990s resulted from the convergence of two forces: the local resumption of interrupted neo-avant-garde trajectories and the reception of Western post-medium discourses that proclaimed the “end of painting.” Through selected case studies, the text examines how Slovak painters gradually re-engaged the medium by adopting strategies of cultural memory, archival reference, and critical reflection on collective and political histories. The article demonstrates that, after 2000, painting in Slovakia became an active site for negotiating post-communist identity, processing historical trauma, and responding to the socio-economic transformations of the new republic. Rather than a conservative revival, this return to painting reveals a hybridized post-media practice that incorporates conceptual, documentary, and affective registers while addressing broader Central European debates on remembrance, place, and historical responsibility.

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