The fountain, created by Juraj Gavula from elementary shapes and set among trees in the park area of the former House of the Socialist Youth Union (SZM), has operated every summer season since 2021. Its water element artfully complements the ingeniously composed whole. As his central motif, Gavula chose a sphere atop a profiled platform formed of a square grid. Within the basin, an integrated water system comprising a series of metal segments serves both as a functional and an artistic element of the work. This is redolent of the artist's typical "grunt" composition, repeated and developed in several free and monumental works. It is distinguished by division of the stone block or surface into grooves from which "shoots" grow, indicating the separation of the material. In this fountain, the artist combined two main geometric shapes in contrasting types of stone (sphere – travertine, platform – andesite) such that they appear to levitate, light and almost weightless, above the rectangular pool. The sphere represents a cosmic body. In the normative iconography of socialist art, the motif of the globe was used abundantly, even excessively, as a symbol of peace and revolutionary internationalism. The planet was originally decorated with the relief of the SZM organisation's emblem, but this was removed in the 1990s to leave only the dynamically designed frame. Although the composition bore a prescribed ideological meaning, its modern geometric morphology of progressive minimalist aesthetics communicates a more universal message. This model of the world can be understood as the embodiment of global and timeless natural and cosmic principles, but also as a representation of the beauty and harmonious perfection of planet Earth. 

VB

Research status as of 31. 12. 2023.