Part from the speech by Henry Hughes, at the opening of Independent Scene, A segment of Slovak Visual Art 1960-2000 in London, March 2012. "What you see here in this space is the crème de la crème and very carefully chosen work chosen by Zuzana Bartosova, a step ahead of the works perhaps in the National Museum Collection." " JankoviÄ piece, The Movable Hands are moving, waving in unison. And that in sense sets the scene the way that artists have responded, artists who are outside the official system right up to 1989 maintained their own independence and contacts with artist in surrounding countries and responded to ideas in outside world. Most of those artists, almost working in isolation. But almost all these works here are kind of key works of the individual artists concerned. In sense, there was a double divorce if you were living in Bratislava. There was a divorce from centralized part, artistic patronage provided by Prague, which was a dominant partner in this feder! ated republic, and of course there was a divorce from the west. And the isolation in Bratislava really was the fertile element I think in sense, that artists were left to their own devices, maybe they were followed a bit by the security police, but on the whole they could do what they wanted provided they didn't put their heads up above the parapet and I think this is the essential message you are getting from this exhibition. All those artists and their work up to 1989 have formed the basis of the Slovak
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