Zlín Youth Salon 2021: The Earth Beneath Our Feet

07. September - 31. October 2021

Opening: 7th September at 5 pm

September 8th – 31st October 2021

1st floor of the building 14, Tomas Bata Memorial

The Zlín Youth Salon is the most important exhibition of contemporary young art organized by the Regional Gallery of Fine Arts in Zlín. It follows the tradition of the famous Baťa shows of contemporary art, the Zlín Salons in the years 1936–1948. Its main goal has been to discover outstanding personalities among emerging artists. Its eighth round takes place from 8 September to 31 October 2021 and is subtitled The Earth Beneath Our Feet. However, the intention of this year’s show is no longer to present a broad and representative cross-section of the Czech and Slovak art scenes, but rather to present themes that resonate in the work of young artists. This upcoming exhibition is united with the previous ones mainly by its name and its focus on the younger art scene. The exhibition jury, which used to select artists to participate in the Salon, was therefore replaced by the curatorial duo Tereza Záchová and Nikolas Bernáth.

Their exhibition concept for this year’s Zlín Youth Salon was being finalized during the 59th US presidential election, when many more factors than just two male names “competed” with each other in the final round. The thing is that long ago, in 2016, the American dream melted away, leaving a bitter aftertaste, and gradually elsewhere in Europe the time has come for a new populism to enter into political worldviews. Perhaps because of this, visibly environmental themes have come to the fore again, and our own young generation of artists has begun to address them vigorously. The denial of climate change has thus triggered a rather strong trend in art. Climate change did not happen overnight, though. In the last four years we have seen an intense breakdown of views, incipient unrest, political instability, environmental struggles that are growing and gaining new intensity in the world. The threats of populism thus concern us all, whether in their general universality to do with land, territories, places or regions, or whether to do with the current problems of migration, ecology, post-colonialism or the new rise of nationalism.

Zlín Youth Salon 2021is held under the auspicies of Minister of Culture of the Czech Republic Lubomír Zaorálek, the Governor of the Zlín Region Radim Holiš and the Mayor of the City of Zlín Jiří Korec. The project is realized with the financial support of the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, the Zlín Region and the City of Zlín.

Curators: Nikolas Bernáth, Tereza Záchová