ART STAYS is one of the foremost institutions in Slovenia today. Since 2006 ART STAYS has played a leading role in bringing an international vibrancy to the city’s art scene, showing for the first time in Slovenia the works of artists such as Leo Ferdinand Demetz, Elisa Rossi, Kensuke Koike, Angelo Volpe, Igor Molin, Raphael Di Luzio, Florian Langemaack, Tim Roeloffs, Marek Schovanek, Sissa Micheli, Peter Wehinger. ART STAYS focuses on promoting, supporting and showing young and mid-career contemporary artists, covering different media such as painting, video, installation, photography and performance. Thanks to the great support and collaboration with curators and European public and private institutions ART STAYS wants to offer a wider range of possibilities to exhibiting artists, functioning as a laboratory for young contemporary art. The strategic geographical position in the heart of Europe permits a circulation of international emerging art positions and makes it comfortable for the collectors and institutions to take part to its activities and supporting new projects. With the same intention, Galerija FO.VI, now with a new space in the city of Kidricevo, was opened by ART STAYS in 2006.
2012 was a landmark year for the ART STAYS International Festival of Contemporary Art. It celebrated its 10th anniversary and played an important role in the European Capital of Culture Maribor 2012, which brought much attention to the exceptional cultural offer of Ptuj.
ART STAYS has also an artist in residence program and organizes the International Festival of Contemporary Art which is from 2003 the main event of Visual Art happening in the region of Ptuj in Slovenia. Each year a wide and representative international panorama of artists and exhibitions of contemporary visual art opens new projects, national pavillions and events that are united in international appointments by ART STAYS.