Warhol exhibition cancelled
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An exhibition of Andy Warhol prints in the only museum in Europe dedicated to the American pop icon has been cancelled due to a hole in the roof.
"Yes, there is a hole in the roof ... Who would let pieces worth millions displayed in a leaky museum?" Michal Bycko told AFP of the museum located in the eastern Slovak town of Medzilaborce.
The museum, which opened in 1991 with support from Warhol's brother John and the Andy Warhol Foundation in New York, was to have opened the biggest exhibition in its history in early August, with about 60 prints loaned by five private collectors.
The exhibition had to be put off due to technical problems following torrential rains that caused flooding in eastern Slovakia.
Since then, reconstruction has not occurred because of "paralysed communication between the town and the museum," said Mr Bycko.
"There are technical, financial and legal problems, but the biggest problem is that nobody realises that Warhol is not just some regional scribbler but a world known art icon," Mr Bycko said.
The parents of the painter, Ondrej and Julia, were modest Ruthenians born in the Subcarpathian foothills in what is present day Slovakia.
They emigrated to the United States before World War I.
The collection in Medzilaborce, a poor town of 6,700 located in an area of high unemployment after the collapse of communist-era industries, is the second biggest collection after The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.
- AFP
