Contemporary art in Prague
Where gothic spires meet electric coconuts:
Prague has always inspired creativity, but its artists today find stimulation as the new consumerism meets a complex past
DEANNA MACDONALD
Globe and Mail, May 7, 2005
PRAGUE -- With a start, I realized that there was a man dangling in midair above my head. Clinging with one hand to an extended beam, his other hand was in his suit pocket.
I laughed out loud, partly relieved, partly amused, as I realized that it was none other than Vladimir Ilych Lenin, goatee and all, nonchalantly hanging over Husova Street in Prague's Old Town. Aptly entitled Hanging Out (1996), this is an installation art piece by Czech artist David Cerny.
Cerny's cleverly subversive installations dot the city, from Godzilla-sized "Babies" crawling up the Zizkov TV Tower to a parody of a Czech icon, St. Wenceslas, whose famous statue on Wenceslas Square Cerny literally overturns, placing the saint astride the belly of his horse, which hangs upside down in the Lucerna Palace.
There is something extraordinary about a city famed for its Gothic spires, baroque sculpture and art nouveau curlicues that isn't afraid of new art. It suggests an openness, a vibrancy and a sense of humour that belies its age and grandeur. Most visitors to Prague are often surprised by the prevalence of modern and contemporary art found everywhere from Romanesque cellars and former factories to the streets themselves.
But Prague has always inspired creativity: The skyline alone is a story of artistic inspiration from the medieval St. Vitus Cathedral and the Cubist House of the Black Madonna (today the Museum of Czech Cubism) to Frank Gehry's "Fred and Ginger" building that seems to dance along the Vltava embankment. Old and new mingle here, but it was the new, particularly in the art world, that I wanted to see on a recent visit to Prague. The city has undergone numerous changes since I first came here in 1990, from a complete overhaul of the National Gallery system to extensive and sometimes questionable restorations. A change that is not always immediately evident, however, is the radical change in the role of art in the city.
Art has always been a major part of urban life in Prague, even during the communist years when "unofficial" art, which often included some level of social or political criticism, was made and exhibited privately. (As opposed to state-sanctioned "official" art that involved rosy-cheeked workers and heroic leaders of "socialist realism.") It is only recently, as galleries and museums began to display both their pre- and post-1989 works that these artists have begun to receive some well-deserved attention.
But since 1989, without the looming presence of communism, artists in Prague and throughout the former Communist bloc -- who began their careers under its oppressive shadow, and often in response to it -- have had to search for meaning in the new capitalist commercial art market. I frequently heard reference to French existentialist writer Jean-Paul Sartre's famous 1944 quote: "We have never been so free as under the German occupation."
It neatly sums up the artistic paradox experienced by those whose art emerged in relation to a repressive state that no longer exists. Still, many pre-1989 artists continue to be active, and a new generation is emerging as the tension between the ambiguities of the present, including the questionable value of the influx of Western media and consumerism, and the weight of a complex past acts as a new creative stimulus.
You don't have to look hard to find contemporary art in Prague. It is liberally sprinkled with museums, galleries and exhibition spaces; in fact, you don't even have to go any farther than the iconic Charles Bridge to spy your first piece. Elbowing my way through the tourist crowds on the 14th-century bridge on a sunny spring day, I stopped to look toward Kampa Island, where on a breakwater in the Vltava River is Magdalena Jetelova's enormous Chair. Hued from wood, it seems to be walking away, as if tired of waiting for some unseen giant to take a seat. Both amusing and unsettling, it displays Jetelova's characteristic preoccupation with the "magic of things." Her voluminous everyday objects -- doors that don't close and stairs that can't be walked up -- are like living things and prompt a revaluation of perception and reality. (The Chair also gained unexpected fame in the 2002 floods when it was washed 35 kilometres downstream.)
You can see more of Jetelova's work, as well as numerous other Central European artists, at the Museum Kampa on the Mala Strana Island of the same name. Perhaps the most beautifully situated art museum in Prague, the Museum Kampa is a redesigned mill dating to the 14th century, with a wonderful light-filled interior, ideal for viewing the art collections of Jan and Meda Mladek.
Described as a "baby Guggenheim" in the making, much of the museum's collection was purchased by the Mladeks from the 1960s onward during visits to Prague from United States. "In the early days, I had friends who helped me locate the artists, as there were no galleries and the museums were not permitted to exhibit art from artists who were not connected with the regime," the Czech-born Meda Mladek said. "Both my husband [who died in 1989] and I believed very strongly that when the culture survives, so will the country. So, after 1989, I decided to donate the collection to Prague and to create this museum."
After much bureaucratic wrangling and near-devastating flood in 2002, the museum finally opened in 2003. Part of the museum is devoted to the work of Otto Gutfreund and Frantisek Kupka, stars of Czech art in the first half of the 20th century, while the rest focuses on the evocative and powerful works of former "unofficial" artists.
Although often dealing with issues of censorship, isolation and dehumanization in a totalitarian state, much of the artwork from this period has a characteristically "Czech" approach: fusing social criticism with black humour, gentle irony and a well-developed sense of the absurd. One example is Karel Nepras's red, robotic Family, whose automated march is both comic and touchingly human. The exhibits link the recent past and present of Central European art.
Prague's compact city centre is ideal for walking and so from Kampa I took a short stroll to the other side of the Vtlava to another of Prague's great art spaces, the Exhibition Hall Manes. Romantically spanning a river canal, this distinctive functionalist building was designed by Otakar Novotny in the 1920s as a gallery for the Manes Society of Artists and has witnessed some of the first major museum shows by the likes of Matisse, Picasso and the French Surrealists. Inside, its cavernous whitewashed galleries continue to host avant-garde art exhibits and events.
With a glance at Gehry's nearby "Fred and Ginger" building, I continued on into the New Town along Narodni trida (National Avenue), which, although it follows the line of the city's medieval walls, is now a mix of baroque, art nouveau and functionalist buildings. Prague is nothing if not eclectic.
Here, behind a crisp, glass façade is the commercial contemporary art Galerie Vaclava Spaly, founded in the 1960s by renowned art critic Jindrich Chalupecky. Another well-respected commercial space is Galerie Jiri Svestka, which represents numerous interesting international and local artists. I visited the show Super Natural Special Real filled with the mechanical fantasies of Prague artist Kristof Kintera. I giggled my way though his hilariously disturbing creations such as electrified coconuts and the twisted relations between an electric knife and watermelon.
Back in the Old Town, just past Cerny's hanging Lenin, is the historic "Royal Route" of Bohemian kings that today is lined with the worst of tacky souvenir shops and is often a crush of tourist bodies. Amid this chaos is the oasis of the Czech Museum of Fine Arts. The principal entrance is in a gabled, Renaissance façade that leads into an airy, modern exhibition space.
"We present new art by both Czech and international artists," curator Richard Drury said, "but many of our thematic shows are draw from our gallery's collections." These include works of Czech modernism, surrealism and geometric abstraction. Galleries downstairs offer a rare opportunity to visit an original Romanesque cellar as well as to see the unusual sight of contemporary art displayed beneath 12th-century limestone vaulting.
To see what the city's rising young artists were up to, I took a trip up behind Petrin Hill to Futura, a non-profit visual art space housed in a former factory. Founded in 2003, it holds events and exhibits of top young artists working in media ranging from video and painting to performance.
The exhibit I saw was entitled Insiders/The Unobtrusive Generation of the Late 1990s, a play on the idea that the Czech contemporary art scene is so small and closed as to be essentially a community of insiders. But I couldn't help but think that with Prague's millions of visitors and its active art scene, thriving despite the flux of the past years, it can only be a matter of time before the secret is out.
Deanna MacDonald is an art historian and author of the forthcoming Art for Travellers Prague (Interlink Publishing)
***
Pack your bags
MUSEUMS AND GALLERIES
Museum Kampa: U Sovovych mlynu 2; http://www.museumkampa.cz.
Exhibition Hall Manes: Masarykovo naboezi 250; 420 (2) 249-30754; http://www.galeriemanes.cz.
Galerie Vaclava Spaly: Narodni toida 30; http://www.nadace-cfu.cz; 420 (2) 249-46738.
Czech Museum of Fine Arts: Husova 19-21; 420 (2) 222-20218; http://www.cmvu.cz.
Galerie Rudolfinum: Alsovo naboezi 1; http://www.galerierudolfinum.cz.
Galerie Jioi Svestka: Biskupsky dvur 6; http://www.jirisvestka.com; 420 (2) 223-11099.
Futura, Centre for Contemporary Art and Events: Holeekova 49; http://www.futuraprojekt.com; 420 (2) 515-11804.
Trade Fair Palace: Dukelskych hrdinu 47; http://www.ngprague.cz; 420 (2) 243-01003. This is where the National Gallery's modern and contemporary art is found.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Art Prague 2005: International art fair, May 24 to 29; art-prague.cz.
Second Prague Bienniale: Displaying numerous local and international artists, May 24 to Sept. 15; http://www.praguebiennale.org.
MORE INFORMATION
When in Prague, look for the free brochure Guide to Prague Galleries, found in most of the above galleries and museums.
Czech National Tourism Authority: 416-363-9928; czechtourism.com.
Prague has always inspired creativity, but its artists today find stimulation as the new consumerism meets a complex past
DEANNA MACDONALD
Globe and Mail, May 7, 2005
PRAGUE -- With a start, I realized that there was a man dangling in midair above my head. Clinging with one hand to an extended beam, his other hand was in his suit pocket.
I laughed out loud, partly relieved, partly amused, as I realized that it was none other than Vladimir Ilych Lenin, goatee and all, nonchalantly hanging over Husova Street in Prague's Old Town. Aptly entitled Hanging Out (1996), this is an installation art piece by Czech artist David Cerny.
Cerny's cleverly subversive installations dot the city, from Godzilla-sized "Babies" crawling up the Zizkov TV Tower to a parody of a Czech icon, St. Wenceslas, whose famous statue on Wenceslas Square Cerny literally overturns, placing the saint astride the belly of his horse, which hangs upside down in the Lucerna Palace.
There is something extraordinary about a city famed for its Gothic spires, baroque sculpture and art nouveau curlicues that isn't afraid of new art. It suggests an openness, a vibrancy and a sense of humour that belies its age and grandeur. Most visitors to Prague are often surprised by the prevalence of modern and contemporary art found everywhere from Romanesque cellars and former factories to the streets themselves.
But Prague has always inspired creativity: The skyline alone is a story of artistic inspiration from the medieval St. Vitus Cathedral and the Cubist House of the Black Madonna (today the Museum of Czech Cubism) to Frank Gehry's "Fred and Ginger" building that seems to dance along the Vltava embankment. Old and new mingle here, but it was the new, particularly in the art world, that I wanted to see on a recent visit to Prague. The city has undergone numerous changes since I first came here in 1990, from a complete overhaul of the National Gallery system to extensive and sometimes questionable restorations. A change that is not always immediately evident, however, is the radical change in the role of art in the city.
Art has always been a major part of urban life in Prague, even during the communist years when "unofficial" art, which often included some level of social or political criticism, was made and exhibited privately. (As opposed to state-sanctioned "official" art that involved rosy-cheeked workers and heroic leaders of "socialist realism.") It is only recently, as galleries and museums began to display both their pre- and post-1989 works that these artists have begun to receive some well-deserved attention.
But since 1989, without the looming presence of communism, artists in Prague and throughout the former Communist bloc -- who began their careers under its oppressive shadow, and often in response to it -- have had to search for meaning in the new capitalist commercial art market. I frequently heard reference to French existentialist writer Jean-Paul Sartre's famous 1944 quote: "We have never been so free as under the German occupation."
It neatly sums up the artistic paradox experienced by those whose art emerged in relation to a repressive state that no longer exists. Still, many pre-1989 artists continue to be active, and a new generation is emerging as the tension between the ambiguities of the present, including the questionable value of the influx of Western media and consumerism, and the weight of a complex past acts as a new creative stimulus.
You don't have to look hard to find contemporary art in Prague. It is liberally sprinkled with museums, galleries and exhibition spaces; in fact, you don't even have to go any farther than the iconic Charles Bridge to spy your first piece. Elbowing my way through the tourist crowds on the 14th-century bridge on a sunny spring day, I stopped to look toward Kampa Island, where on a breakwater in the Vltava River is Magdalena Jetelova's enormous Chair. Hued from wood, it seems to be walking away, as if tired of waiting for some unseen giant to take a seat. Both amusing and unsettling, it displays Jetelova's characteristic preoccupation with the "magic of things." Her voluminous everyday objects -- doors that don't close and stairs that can't be walked up -- are like living things and prompt a revaluation of perception and reality. (The Chair also gained unexpected fame in the 2002 floods when it was washed 35 kilometres downstream.)
You can see more of Jetelova's work, as well as numerous other Central European artists, at the Museum Kampa on the Mala Strana Island of the same name. Perhaps the most beautifully situated art museum in Prague, the Museum Kampa is a redesigned mill dating to the 14th century, with a wonderful light-filled interior, ideal for viewing the art collections of Jan and Meda Mladek.
Described as a "baby Guggenheim" in the making, much of the museum's collection was purchased by the Mladeks from the 1960s onward during visits to Prague from United States. "In the early days, I had friends who helped me locate the artists, as there were no galleries and the museums were not permitted to exhibit art from artists who were not connected with the regime," the Czech-born Meda Mladek said. "Both my husband [who died in 1989] and I believed very strongly that when the culture survives, so will the country. So, after 1989, I decided to donate the collection to Prague and to create this museum."
After much bureaucratic wrangling and near-devastating flood in 2002, the museum finally opened in 2003. Part of the museum is devoted to the work of Otto Gutfreund and Frantisek Kupka, stars of Czech art in the first half of the 20th century, while the rest focuses on the evocative and powerful works of former "unofficial" artists.
Although often dealing with issues of censorship, isolation and dehumanization in a totalitarian state, much of the artwork from this period has a characteristically "Czech" approach: fusing social criticism with black humour, gentle irony and a well-developed sense of the absurd. One example is Karel Nepras's red, robotic Family, whose automated march is both comic and touchingly human. The exhibits link the recent past and present of Central European art.
Prague's compact city centre is ideal for walking and so from Kampa I took a short stroll to the other side of the Vtlava to another of Prague's great art spaces, the Exhibition Hall Manes. Romantically spanning a river canal, this distinctive functionalist building was designed by Otakar Novotny in the 1920s as a gallery for the Manes Society of Artists and has witnessed some of the first major museum shows by the likes of Matisse, Picasso and the French Surrealists. Inside, its cavernous whitewashed galleries continue to host avant-garde art exhibits and events.
With a glance at Gehry's nearby "Fred and Ginger" building, I continued on into the New Town along Narodni trida (National Avenue), which, although it follows the line of the city's medieval walls, is now a mix of baroque, art nouveau and functionalist buildings. Prague is nothing if not eclectic.
Here, behind a crisp, glass façade is the commercial contemporary art Galerie Vaclava Spaly, founded in the 1960s by renowned art critic Jindrich Chalupecky. Another well-respected commercial space is Galerie Jiri Svestka, which represents numerous interesting international and local artists. I visited the show Super Natural Special Real filled with the mechanical fantasies of Prague artist Kristof Kintera. I giggled my way though his hilariously disturbing creations such as electrified coconuts and the twisted relations between an electric knife and watermelon.
Back in the Old Town, just past Cerny's hanging Lenin, is the historic "Royal Route" of Bohemian kings that today is lined with the worst of tacky souvenir shops and is often a crush of tourist bodies. Amid this chaos is the oasis of the Czech Museum of Fine Arts. The principal entrance is in a gabled, Renaissance façade that leads into an airy, modern exhibition space.
"We present new art by both Czech and international artists," curator Richard Drury said, "but many of our thematic shows are draw from our gallery's collections." These include works of Czech modernism, surrealism and geometric abstraction. Galleries downstairs offer a rare opportunity to visit an original Romanesque cellar as well as to see the unusual sight of contemporary art displayed beneath 12th-century limestone vaulting.
To see what the city's rising young artists were up to, I took a trip up behind Petrin Hill to Futura, a non-profit visual art space housed in a former factory. Founded in 2003, it holds events and exhibits of top young artists working in media ranging from video and painting to performance.
The exhibit I saw was entitled Insiders/The Unobtrusive Generation of the Late 1990s, a play on the idea that the Czech contemporary art scene is so small and closed as to be essentially a community of insiders. But I couldn't help but think that with Prague's millions of visitors and its active art scene, thriving despite the flux of the past years, it can only be a matter of time before the secret is out.
Deanna MacDonald is an art historian and author of the forthcoming Art for Travellers Prague (Interlink Publishing)
***
Pack your bags
MUSEUMS AND GALLERIES
Museum Kampa: U Sovovych mlynu 2; http://www.museumkampa.cz.
Exhibition Hall Manes: Masarykovo naboezi 250; 420 (2) 249-30754; http://www.galeriemanes.cz.
Galerie Vaclava Spaly: Narodni toida 30; http://www.nadace-cfu.cz; 420 (2) 249-46738.
Czech Museum of Fine Arts: Husova 19-21; 420 (2) 222-20218; http://www.cmvu.cz.
Galerie Rudolfinum: Alsovo naboezi 1; http://www.galerierudolfinum.cz.
Galerie Jioi Svestka: Biskupsky dvur 6; http://www.jirisvestka.com; 420 (2) 223-11099.
Futura, Centre for Contemporary Art and Events: Holeekova 49; http://www.futuraprojekt.com; 420 (2) 515-11804.
Trade Fair Palace: Dukelskych hrdinu 47; http://www.ngprague.cz; 420 (2) 243-01003. This is where the National Gallery's modern and contemporary art is found.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Art Prague 2005: International art fair, May 24 to 29; art-prague.cz.
Second Prague Bienniale: Displaying numerous local and international artists, May 24 to Sept. 15; http://www.praguebiennale.org.
MORE INFORMATION
When in Prague, look for the free brochure Guide to Prague Galleries, found in most of the above galleries and museums.
Czech National Tourism Authority: 416-363-9928; czechtourism.com.
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