City Gallery

City Gallery and its expert team are looking for new ways through which it can connect its work with other fields and thus address the importance of art to an ever-wider audience.

The gallery premises are increasingly being opened to create an accessible, friendly and inspiring environment open to the public, including local artists, local communities and fellow citizens with special needs.

This is a much broader and contemporary understanding of the basic mission of the Gallery – which has been operating since 1961 as a separate cultural organisation under the founding competence of the city – to systematically collect, professionally process, protect, document and make available to the public collection items of fine art (in the form of exhibitions, permanent installations, scientific research, educational and editorial activities).

The Gallery is putting together a collection as part of the cultural heritage of Bratislava and currently manages more than 35 000 collection items documenting the development of fine arts in Slovakia from the Gothic period to the present day. Works of old central European art make part of City Gallery collection.

The gallery also plays an important role in protection and care for immovable cultural heritage domain.

The buildings of the Mirbach and Pálffy Palaces, in which the Gallery is located, have the status of a national cultural monument. The Gallery is a part of the city's public spaces programme also through other activities aimed at saving, managing and installing artworks located in the outdoor of individual Bratislava city districts.

Gallery also offers an educational programme focused on the topic of public space, its values and its role in the lives of city society.

Gallery education

Every year, the Education Department of City Gallery prepares more than 200 programmes for children, young people, teachers, seniors and parents on parental leave. The gallery also forms accompanying programmes to exhibitions aimed at the adult audiences, which promotes a long-lasting relationship with visual arts. Currently, the education department is working on establishing an all-year-round accessible educational center located in the Mirbach Palace.

Publishing activities

City Gallery publishes catalogues for its exhibitions, monographs of artists whose works are represented in the gallery's collection, as well as publications summarising the results of scientific and research activities.

Publications can be found at the gallery shop and in the distribution network of bookshops offering artistic literature.