Opening on Monday 23. April 2012
OPENING HOURS
April 24 – 27, 2012 11 am – 7 pm
April 28 and 29, 2012 10 am – 6 pm
April 26, 2012 NOCTURNO until 10 pm
DOX Centre for Contemporary Art
Poupětova 1, Praha 7
2012
Prague Photo Festival 2012
24 / 4 / 2012 — 29 / 4 / 2012
Guided tours with the curator Jürgen Kaumkötter
3 / 4 / 2012 — 4 / 4 / 2012
Guided tours will be on 3.4. and 4.4. start at 5 pm .
Tours will be guided by curator of the exhibition Dreams and Nightmares Mr. Jürgen Kaumkötter.
Available in Czech, German and English.
Duration: 40 minut
Admission: 110 Kč, Reduced admission: 70 Kč
For booking and more information please contact us: Jana Kleinová, +420 724 992 545
e-mail: jana.kleinova@muzeummontanelli.com,
Muzeum Montanelli, MuMo, Nerudova 13, Praha 1
Daniel Pešta "Gravitation Zero" Art Museum of Solingen
12 / 2 / 2012 — 18 / 3 / 2012
With the exhibition “Heaven and Hell”, the Art Museum of Solingen established its Museum of Persecuted Arts project in 2008. The museum focuses intensively on the life-history of artists, with their persecution and the oppression of their works. The collection of this highly respected German museum contains a range of important works by authors who were victims of historical wrong-doing or who were not indifferent to these stories and who presented their testimony by means of their artistic creations.
These fields also include the work of the multi-media artist Daniel Pešta. In actual fact, two life experiences come together in his work. The first of these is life under communist repression, when the author found himself in social as well as artistic isolation; the second is a reaction to the change of regime and subsequent life in a free world.
In his pictures, resinous objects, “Genetic Codes”, videos or assemblages Pešta touches on these areas of human existence in his own personal manner with neither pathos nor prejudice. Furthermore, he consistently probes the very essence of being, without following any trend, he psychologically analyses individuals and society as a whole, uncovering wrongdoing, exposing the relativity of “morality”. He knows that between “heaven” and “hell” there is only an imaginary glass wall, through which one looks at the other in a single reality.
The Solingen exhibition takes place somehow in a haze, whose atmosphere can be compared to certain of Pina Bausch‘s choreographies. It is not by chance that Pešta has dedicated one of the main spatial installations, Gravitation Zero, as a homage to this dancer and choreographer, who originated from Wuppertal. This work consists of twelve figurines in stopped motion. Their facial expressions are ambivalent, lit by an inner light, perhaps bringing tidings of good times, perhaps covering up dark secrets.
Last year his works were shown in Felix Nussbaum House/Museum of Cultural History Osnabrück under the title “Levitation“. The concept of the exhibition and the selection of exhibits have been completely revised and adapted for the Solingen museum. This is also evidenced by the new title: “Gravitation Zero“ with a homage to Pina Bausch.
Daniel Pešta has attended many renowned biennale of contemporary art (Mexico City, Chicago, Florence, Prague) and for his freelance and literary creations has received numerous awards. He is a member of the Czech Artistic Association Mánes, lives and works in Prague and in Frankfurt-am-Main.
Museum of art in Solingen
Wuppertaler str. 160, Solingen 426 53
www.kunstmuseum-solingen.de
Gallery animation with children from a Sanquis magazine redaction
10 / 1 / 2012
Jak se dělá koláž s Pavlou Aubrechtovou
“Na začátku ledna zamířila dětská redakce Sanquis – JUNIOR do pražského Muzea Montanelli, kde zrovna vystavovali svá díla Pavla Aubrechtová a Vladimír Gebauer. Děti se v krásných prostorách galerie v Nerudově ulici mohly setkat a popovídat si s oběma umělci, prohlédly si jejich práce a také nahlédly do jejich ateliérů
(součástí originální expozice byly i pracovní stoly, skříňky a další předměty, s nimiž paní Aubrechtová tvoří). A pak si také samy vyzkoušely, jak se dělá koláž z nejrůznějších papírových ústřižků. Rádci skutečně povolanými jim byli přitom oba umělci a Jana Kleinová z galerie. Na motivy čtyřverší, jež si děti vybraly, vznikla série zajímavých obrázků. Ty budou ilustrovat nové číslo Sanquisu – JUNIOR. Více najdete na našem webu www.sanquis.cz/junior.”
Z magazínu Sanquis č.97/únor 2012 str. 4
Montanelli Museum
Nerudova 13, 118 00 Praha 1
2011
The Secret of Pavla Aubrechtová, the Cabinet of Vladimír Gebauer
2 / 11 / 2011 — 31 / 1 / 2012
Both artists, Pavla Aubrechtová as well as Vladimír Gebauer, belong to the generation coming on the scene in the mid-1970s, amid the oppressive atmosphere where freedom of expression in all creative fields was severely curtailed. The work of both these artists was known only within the narrow circle of their friends.
They continue with the experimental tendencies prevalent in the 1960s. Both styles are clearly characteristic, for each of them typical. The exhibition in the Montanelli Museum offers an entirely new and exceptional view of the life and works of both these authors.
Montanelli Museum
Nerudova 13, 118 00 Praha 1
The culminage of our exhibition “Anatomia Metamorphosis”
21 / 9 / 2011
We would like to invite you to the culminage of our exhibition “Anatomia Metamorphosis” on Sept 21, 2011
Programme:
4 p.m. – tour with a commentary by the curator of the exhibition, Terezie Zemánková
5.30 p.m. – presentation of Rouge Ciel, a film about art brut (outsider art)
Entrance fee 50,- CZK
Rouge Ciel tells the story of these artists out of the norms, visionaries who set ablaze our spirit and shake our ways of thinking. This film shows interviews of those who have influenced the perception of art brut, writers, philosophers, psychoanalysts and art amateurs, as it also traces its fragmented history. 93 min, English.
Montanelli Museum
Nerudova 13, 118 00 Praha 1
Daniel Pešta, Levitation Osnabrück
17 / 9 / 2011 — 27 / 11 / 2011
Between 17.9. 2011 and 27.11. 2011 the Felix-Nussbaum-Haus / Museum of Modern Art Osnabrück will be presenting an authorial exhibition by the Czech artist Daniel Pešta. His works will be displayed in the historical part of the museum as well as in the new premises opened this year, which were designed by the American architect Daniel Libeskind.
The Daniel Pešta – Levitation exhibition encompasses a wide range of the author’s interpretative means – from paintings, through spatial and suspended objects, on to videoart and conceptual creations. Pešta has prepared this creative project for the Felix Nussbaum Museum in which he enters into a dialogue, not only with the person of the Jewish painter Felix Nussbaum, to whose memory the museum is dedicated, but also with the architect Daniel Libeskind. Thus a kind of a “three-way dialogue“ is being generated in which all three authors touch on similar themes, albeit each in his own particular language.
Felix Nussbaum and Daniel Pešta both pose similar questions on the collective conscience, injustice, crime or the abuse of power. They both point out to the nationalistic disposition in society, the ever-present threat of totalitarian trends in some present-day ideologies. Pešta also hints at the problematic misuse of current scientific discoveries, for instance in the matter of genetic manipulation. A further aspect of the author’s work is the place of the individual in the new multi-cultural information system (chaos) and his integration into the global computerised society (isololation), even in some cases the eventual ascendancy of technology over the human entity or else a loss of control over it. This results in a succession of alterations affecting our search for a meaning in life, such as the fundamental transformation of a traditional Western religious society into the first atheist society. These are all great themes for the future and as for their resolution we stand at the very outset.
Pešta is, however, also entering into a dialogue with Nussbaum in a rather satirical manner, counterbalanced by the polarisation of both authors’ creative work, for example the two historical animations of photographs dating from the pre-war civilian life of Felix Nussbaum. The author has paid particular tribute to Felix Nussbaum with three sizeable pictures (Angel for Felix Nussbaum, Piety and Meat) and a spatial installation of embossed faces – face masks under the title of Levitation.
As is typical of this author, the entire creative concept is rigorously designed in advance for the given space, so that it merges with its genius loci in the most natural manner, in this case with Daniel Libeskind’s architecture. For the Vertical Gallery, which is part of the museum’s entrance area, Pešta has created a self-contained concept.
The front elevation of this historic building will be taken up by the author’s neon work emanating from the constituents of the façade, which should be the link connecting the old and the new aspects of the Felix-Nussbaum-Haus Museum.
Project is supported by city of Prague.
Felix-Nussbaum-Haus/Museum of Modern Art Osnabrück
Museum of Modern Art Osnabrück
Lotterstrasse 2
49078 Osnabrück
Tue – Fri:11.00 -18.00, Thu till 20.00
Sa -Sun: 10.00 -18.00
+49(0)541323–2207 museum@osnabrueck.de
www.osnabrueck.de
Maria Maria 1511/2011 Osnabrück
24 / 6 / 2011 — 28 / 8 / 2011
Felix-Nussbaum-Haus / Museum of Cultural History in Osnabrück:
Dürer’s depiction of Mary
in a dialogue with contemporary art
The “Maria Maria 1511/2011“ exhibition, which has already been seen in spring in the Montanelli Museum in Prague, will be added to the already running exceptional “Würde und Anmut“ (Dignity and Grace), which will be inaugurated on the 24th June 2011 in Osnabrück. Today one often speaks of “dignity” and yet no-one knows what exactly is meant by this term. “Grace”? Nowadays this word has gradually been replaced by expressions such as great, cool or super. In Dürer’s day “dignity” and “grace” were still clearly defined and in his work it is quite possible to distinguish them.
The selected works by Dürer, in particular “From the Life of Mary”, have their correspondence with the contemporary art installations and video-projections by Teresa Diehl, Sigalit Landau and Ulrike Rosenbach, who deal with “feminine dignity and grace“. The incorporation of this project into the exhibition “Dignity and Grace” will increase the spectrum of viewing angles in the existing display currently running in the Felix-Nussbaum-Haus / Museum of Cultural History in Osnabrück. This extension of the field of vision is the result of the collaboration with the Montanelli Museum, wherein the “Maria Maria“ exhibition was presented at the beginning of this year.
Teresa Diehl “Hover”
Teresa Diehl was born in Lebanon and currently lives in Miami. In the Felix-Nussbaum-Haus she displays her installation “Hover” and in the Museum of Cultural History her video-installation “Vuela”. She is showing for the first time ever in Germany.
Sigalit Landau “Standing on a Watermelon in the Dead Sea”
Sigalit Landau will be representing the state of Israel this year at the Venice Biennale, where she is responsible for the running of the pavilion. We can deduce her standing in today’s art world by the fact that she will already be appearing at the Biennale for the second time. She first broke through onto the international stage in 1997 with two presentations, at the exhibition Dokumenta X in Kassel and especially at the Biennale in Venice. She also received great recognition in 2008 thanks to her exhibition in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Ulrike Rosenbach „Glauben Sie nicht, dass ich eine Amazone bin“ (Don’t Believe I am an Amazon)
Ulrike Rosenbach’s works mainly in the fields of performance and video art. She studied under Joseph Beuys at the Academy of Arts in Düsseldorf in the early 1970s and just like her teacher she is continually striving to capture the character of contemporary society and her own place within it. In the work „Glauben Sie nicht, dass ich eine Amazone bin“ (Don’t believe I am an Amazon) Ulrike Rosenbach elaborates on the performance of that name, during the course of which she fired fifteeen darts at a reproduction of the painting “Madonna in Rosenhag“ (Madonna in the Pink Grove). As she wrote in one of her early texts: “I identify with the gentle depiction of the Madonna as well as with the aggressiveness of the Amazon. The image of the Madonna – representative, inaccessibly beautiful, kind, shy and, as in the cliché, not entirely in the best of taste – is to be found even in me. The darts that strike the picture, they are also striking me.“
The exhibition is supported by the Lower Saxony Foundation, the administrator of the exhibited Dürer graphic works from the Konrad Liebmann Foundation, and the Czech-German Fund for the Future.
A three-language catalogue (Czech-German-English) has been published on the occasion of the exhibition.
Felix-Nussbaum-Haus / Museum of Cultural History
Lotter Straße 2
49078 Osnabrück
E-Mail: wuerde2011@osnabrueck.de
Internet: www.wuerde2011.de
Opening hours:
Tuesday to Wednesday and Friday 11.00 to 18.00 hours
Thursday 11.00 to 20.00 hours
Saturday and Sunday 10.00 to 18.00 hours
Anatomia Metamorphosis
15 / 6 / 2011 — 30 / 9 / 2011
The exhibition presents works by two already world-renowned Czech authors of art brut – Anna Zemánková (1908 – 1986) and Luboš Plný (*1961) in company with those of the newly discovered artist František Dymáček (1929 – 2003). The selection of works is aimed at the reflecting of corporeality in their artistic creations and at the formal or contentual parallels connecting the works of all these three authors.
The basis of Luboš Plný‘s creative expression is formed by experiments on his own body. His anatomical self-portraits represent phased-out cross-sections of the human body or an x-ray view of the internal organs. In spite of his precision and their overall crudity, his drawings also manage to acquire an aesthetic and even a decorative aspect, which excels, in particular, in confrontation with the work of Anna Zemánková. Her paintings of bewitchingly beautiful alien inflorescence and fruitage are, on the other hand, usually seen as fanciful and pleasingly balanced. In this light, however, they reveal their wild, animal form. The automatic drawings of František Dymáček, where filled-in space is intertwined using organic ornaments, from which the faces of demons peep out, could be likened to drawings of spiritists, with which they have a lot in common.
Three catalogues in three languages (Czech-German-English) has been published for the occasion of the exhibition.
Exhibition will be held as a part of the PQ+ accompanying program within the Prague Quadrennial of Scenography and Performance Design 2011.
16. – 26.6.2011 www.pq.cz
Montanelli Museum
Nerudova 13, 118 00 Praha 1
Prague museum night 2011
11 / 6 / 2011
11.6.2011
From 7 pm – to 1 am
Entrance free
ART BRUT Anatomia Metamorphosis
The exhibition presents works by two already world-renowned Czech authors of art brut – Anna Zemánková (1908 – 1986) and Luboš Plný (*1961) in company with those of the newly discovered artist František Dymáček (1929 – 2003). The selection of works is aimed at the reflecting of corporeality in their artistic creations and at the formal or contentual parallels connecting the works of all these three authors.
The basis of Luboš Plný‘s creative expression is formed by experiments on his own body. His anatomical self-portraits represent phased-out cross-sections of the human body or an x-ray view of the internal organs. In spite of his precision and their overall crudity, his drawings also manage to acquire an aesthetic and even a decorative aspect, which excels, in particular, in confrontation with the work of Anna Zemánková. Her paintings of bewitchingly beautiful alien inflorescence and fruitage are, on the other hand, usually seen as fanciful and pleasingly balanced. In this light, however, they reveal their wild, animal form. The automatic drawings of František Dymáček, where filled-in space is intertwined using organic ornaments, from which the faces of demons peep out, could be likened to drawings of spiritists, with which they have a lot in common.
Three catalogues in three languages (Czech-German-English) has been published for the occasion of the exhibition.
Montanelli Museum
Nerudova 13, 118 00 Praha 1
Maria Maria 1511/2011
17 / 2 / 2011 — 22 / 5 / 2011
Montanelli Museum in Prague, 17th February – 22nd May 2011
Felix Nussbaum House/Museum of Cultural History in Osnabrück, 8th June – 17th July 2011
The „Maria Maria 1511/2011“ exhibition is the result of a collaboration between the Montanelli Museum in Prague and the Felix Nussbaum House/Museum of Cultural History in Osnabrück, who will loan Prague their collection of graphic works by Albrecht Dürer which forms the core of the exhibition. The Montanelli Museum is engaged in the presentation of contemporary art and will complement these 500-year-old prints by the renaissance master with three installations and video-projections by the American artist Teresa Diehl, who was born in Lebanon. In summer 2011 this exhibition will transfer to Osnabrück in Germany where it will be augmented by works of the Israeli artist Sigalit Landau (who will represent Israel at the 2011 Venice Biennale) and Ulrike Rosenbach, one of the most significant of today‘s German artists.
The theme of the exhibition proclaims itself in the very title: Mary in 1511 and Mary today. 500 years ago Albrecht Dürer revolutionised the portayal of Mary and women in art generally, a standard from which artists down the ages have drawn inspiration over and over again. This selection of Dürer‘s works allows the viewer, without deference to the Christian interpretation of salvation, to ask whether Dürer‘s portrayal of a woman is still relevant. This question is backed up by current works of art, which touch on the themes of motherhood, femininity and salvation, even when freed from a direct religious context, enriching the exhibition in another aspect – in our individual memories from childhood, the craving for security and tenderness. This confirms that Durers‘s works can be viewed not simply as religious scenes and that from this perspective they become timeless.
The largest section of the exhibition is taken up by Dürer‘s woodcut cycle the „Life of the Virgin“ first published in book form in 1511. The cycle recounts the biblical tale from Mary‘s birth, through her initiation in the temple, her betrothal, the annunciation, visitation, the birth of Jesus Christ, the adoration of the magi, to beyond Mary‘s death, her ascension and veneration.
A further part of the exhibition will be the theme of motherly love. On one sheet Dürer shows the spirited, almost incorporeal Mother of God, then on the second sheet he portays the physical relationship between mother and child. Aspects of motherly love are also dealt with directly by Teresa Diehl in the installation „The Return of Pleasure“. Neither the wholly different techniques of both artists nor their dissimilar artistic expressions impede the deep spiritual and emotional affinity of their works.
The exhibition culminates with two woodcuts and one copper-plate engraving of the Mother of God as Queen of Heaven „symbol of God‘s eternal blessing“, as the original Dürer drawing.
The exhibition will be supplemented by a programme for youth groups, school classes and students, which can be seen on the Montanelli Museum web pages.
The „Maria Maria 1511/2011“ exhibition comes under the auspices of the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany.
The exhibition has been supported by the Lower Saxony Foundation which administers the works by Dürer from the Konrad Liebmann Foundation, as well as by the Czech-German Fund for the Future.
A three-language catalogue (Czech-German-English) is published for the occasion of the exhibition.
Montanelli Museum
Nerudova 13, 118 00 Praha 1
2010
The Immortality of Stars - From Goya and Walter Benjamin to Václav Havel
2 / 10 / 2010 — 5 / 12 / 2010
LEVITATION
10 / 9 / 2010 — 31 / 1 / 2011
Museum Montanelli in Prague presents a hitherto unseen collection of works by the Czech artist Daniel Pešta.
The exhibition will include objects, videos, installations, hanging pictures, spatial images and drawings.
The theme of the exhibition, typically for Pešta, is human beings and the archetypal nuances that differentiate them. It thus confronts us with certain fundamental questions. Is our coefficient of good and evil determined by our genetic code, or by early experience, upbringing, environment and chance events that bring out together or keep us apart?
By uncovering the stories of our ancestors and the various hells of politics, society and family, Pešta raises a number of basic issues such as our collective conscience and our tendency to forget injustice and crime. How many disturbing stories never see the light of day? How many truths do we never succees in discovering?
In its way highly political and socially engaged, Pešta‘s work reminds us of the never-ending story of individual human lives and destinies.
For years a central theme for Pešta has been the Church and issues of moral responsibility arising from age-old religious traditions. The title Levitation can be seen as a personal dream of weightlessness, but also as a synonym for the technology Pešta uses in his extraordinary and intricate works (whether separate beings or whole communities) to float or ‘levitate’ and for the transparent materials he chooses to bring their stories to life.
All Pešta‘s formulations suggest an existential, often naturalistic content. In recent years, however, this element has receded and now tends to be discreetly concealed or precisely reprocessed using specific materials.
Most of the works will be on display for the first time in the Museum Montanelli. This comprehensive solo show will be Pešta‘s first exhibition in the Czech Republic for eight years.
It will subsequently go on tour to various leading European galleries.
The artist‘s book „Levitation“ is published on occasion of this exhibition.
Montanelli Museum
Nerudova 13, 118 00 Praha 1
Black Light
3 / 9 / 2010 — 19 / 11 / 2010
Francisco de Goya
20 / 6 / 2010 — 12 / 9 / 2010
Visions of Horror and Hope
Two valuable artworks from the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Agen, France, are on their way to Germany [the Czech Republic] for the first time: oil paintings by Francisco de Goya and Eugenio Lucas Velazquez. The exhibition will be augmented by selected pieces from Goya’s The Disasters of War and Caprichos. Thematically based on the work of Goya, it will focus on depictions of history and the power of art to shape our perceptions of the past. Specifically, it can be seen as a meditation on the theme of terror against the civilian population and its representation in art. The exhibition looks at Goya’s predecessors in the genre and presents his successors. It will include two series of prints by the great 17th century French etcher Jacques Callot, Les misères de la guerre and Capricci, as well as 20th century works by Otto Pankok who, through his commitment both as an artist and as a human being, supported the victims of Nazi persecution. It could be said that what links Goya and Pankok is their shared compassion for the weak and persecuted. Pictures by Georg Grosz, Horst Strempel and Conrad Felixmüller from the Gerhard Schneider Collection (Citizens’ Foundation for Proscribed Art) in the Museum Baden, Solingen, bear artistic witness to the disasters of the first half of the 20th century.
But this exhibition is not only about the past. It shows how artists today interpret Goya through videos and objects that take a political stance. Like Goya, Sarajevo-born Maja Bajevic also lived through a civil war. Her How do you want to be governed? is a chilling embodiment of the effect of power and the helplessness of the individual confronted with it. Other contemporary artists represented in the exhibition are the Czech Daniel Pešta with his Christ Object; the Berliner Tina Winkhaus with her photographic re-constructions of Goya’s graphic work; the Chinese Yongbo Zhao with his homage to Goya The Pupil Meets the Master; and the Israeli artist Sigalit Landau, who has already represented her country at documenta X and the Venice Biennale. The titles of her works, such as Resident Alien, Endless Solution or Barbed Hula (included in this exhibition) remind us of our inherent right, both politically and as human beings, to take a stand and commit ourselves.
For Tina Winkhaus, approaching Goya is like climbing a precipitous rock. He is dark, morbid and full of unpleasant surprises. But once you reach the top you’ll find a seat where you can relax for a while and look down on what’s happening in the world below.
Presented artists:
Francisco de Goya
a
Maja Bajević
Jacques Callot
Conrad Felixmüller
George Grosz
Willibald Krain
Sigalit Landau
Otto Pankok
Daniel Pešta
Wilhelm Schnarrenberger
Horst Strempel
Eugenio Lucas y Velázquez
Tina Winkhaus
Yongbo Zhao
Museum Voswinckelshof Dinslaken
Elmar-Sierp-Platz 6, 46535 Dinslaken
Opening hours: Tue – Sun 10.00 – 18.00
Prague museum night 2010
12 / 6 / 2010
12.6.2010
from 7 pm – 1 am
free entrance
The monographic exhibition of Bedřich Dlouhý /Self-portrait V., subtitled King of Art 1. reflects the artist’s works, which mostly come from the collection of the DrAK Foundation. Dlouhý´s steady artistic brushwork unifies the exhibition through the element of the aesthetics of strangeness, which became an integral part of Dlouhý´s works thanks to his activity in the art group Šmidrové (Lazy Eyes), and due to the difficult post-war period, during which Dlouhý´s artistic expression was profiled. The aesthetics of strangeness enters the Museum Montanelli exhibition as an unstudied leitmotif, naturally linking monumental assamblages combining painting with everyday objects, whose frequently technical nature acquires an almost organic character in the whole of the painting, with the works reflecting Dlouhý´s interest in classical painting, whose traditional motifs are always made remarkable by the elements of modern times. These, due to their rough matter-of-factness, rouse the viewers from their romantic frame of mind, absurd installations lightening the exhibition thanks to their wittiness having the same effect.
The older, rather raw paintings, assamblages and installations contrast with Dlouhý´s latest works, which are exhibited in the halls of the former Montanelli Gallery. The cycle Inversion from the years 2007 – 2008 consists of seven painting installations, which thanks to their color variety and minimalistic content and form convey an almost dreamlike impression, creating an interesting contrast with the other expressive, raw works presented at the exhibition.
The exhibition Bedřich Dlouhý, Self-portrait V. is the author’s essential monographic exhibition. Czech art-lovers thus have an opportunity to get a coherent view of Dlouhý´s works, including the legendary painting Lace Maker from the year 1987, the reproduction of which was used on the sleeve of the cult music album „In the World Guesthouse“.
The exhibition at the Museum Montanelli celebrates the author’s original and independent approach to his material, which is always treated in a new way, as well as Dlouhý´s virtuosity of painting and drawing and his special sense of finding extraordinary contexts and their masterful interpretation within the frame of the painting.
The Museum Montanelli Café hosts an exhibition of Bedřich Dlouhý´s private photos documenting the artist’s rich social life among the art elite of the twentieth century.
The works presented at the exhibition are included in a catalogue published on this occasion.
Montanelli Museum
Nerudova 13, 118 00 Praha 1
Bedřich Dlouhý Selfportrait V
18 / 2 / 2010 — 30 / 6 / 2010
The monographic exhibition of Bedřich Dlouhý /Self-portrait V., subtitled King of Art 1. reflects the artist’s works, which mostly come from the collection of the DrAK Foundation. Dlouhý´s steady artistic brushwork unifies the exhibition through the element of the aesthetics of strangeness, which became an integral part of Dlouhý´s works thanks to his activity in the art group Šmidrové (Lazy Eyes), and due to the difficult post-war period, during which Dlouhý´s artistic expression was profiled. The aesthetics of strangeness enters the Museum Montanelli exhibition as an unstudied leitmotif, naturally linking monumental assamblages combining painting with everyday objects, whose frequently technical nature acquires an almost organic character in the whole of the painting, with the works reflecting Dlouhý´s interest in classical painting, whose traditional motifs are always made remarkable by the elements of modern times. These, due to their rough matter-of-factness, rouse the viewers from their romantic frame of mind, absurd installations lightening the exhibition thanks to their wittiness having the same effect.
The older, rather raw paintings, assamblages and installations contrast with Dlouhý´s latest works, which are exhibited in the halls of the former Montanelli Gallery. The cycle Inversion from the years 2007 – 2008 consists of seven painting installations, which thanks to their color variety and minimalistic content and form convey an almost dreamlike impression, creating an interesting contrast with the other expressive, raw works presented at the exhibition.
The exhibition Bedřich Dlouhý, Self-portrait V. is the author’s essential monographic exhibition. Czech art-lovers thus have an opportunity to get a coherent view of Dlouhý´s works, including the legendary painting Lace Maker from the year 1987, the reproduction of which was used on the sleeve of the cult music album „In the World Guesthouse“.
The exhibition at the Museum Montanelli celebrates the author’s original and independent approach to his material, which is always treated in a new way, as well as Dlouhý´s virtuosity of painting and drawing and his special sense of finding extraordinary contexts and their masterful interpretation within the frame of the painting.
The Museum Montanelli Café hosts an exhibition of Bedřich Dlouhý´s private photos documenting the artist’s rich social life among the art elite of the twentieth century.
The works presented at the exhibition are included in a catalogue published on this occasion.
Montanelli Museum
Nerudova 13, 118 00 Praha 1
Phenomenon Roučka
4 / 2 / 2010 — 4 / 4 / 2010
Lives in Prague, Czech republic
Born 20.6. 1942 in Prague
1956–1960 – studied geodesy and cartography in Prague
1968,1969,1971 – made set designs for Belvision, Brussels
1969 – painting scholarship from the Union of Czech Artists in Prague
1974 – apart from painting, he made his first prints, figurative compositions and quotations of Renaissance paintings (gravure techniques combined with poured lacquers)
1977 – introduction to litography, eight prints for Biblos series (Book of Ruth). Influenced by literature and pantomime
After 1980 – drawing as definitive form: lithography
Since 1989 – return to painting
1995 – scholarship at the Academy of Arts in Paris organised by the French Ministry of Culture
1996 – directed a lithography class at the Academy of Art in Maastricht, Holland
1993 – 2004 directed a painting class at the Summer Academy in Frauenau, Germany
2003 – named “Chevalier dans l’ordre des Palmes Académique“ by the government of France
Solo EXHIBITIONS 1976 – 2005
Has had more than a hundred solo exhibitions in galleries and museums in the Czech Republic, Germany, France, the USA, Tunisia, Japan, Denmark, Holland, Canada and Poland. Has participated in many international exhibitions and surveys of Czech art in the Czech Republic, the USA, France, Japan, Spain, Austria, Germany, Denmark, Italy, Holland, Belgium, Poland and Brazil
Saarländische gallery in the Palais Am Festungsgraben
Europäisches Kunstforum e.V. Am Festungsgraben 1, 10117 Berlin, BRD
2009
OPENING
30 / 9 / 2009 — 31 / 1 / 2010
Bajevic, Bláhová, Chkhikvadze, Galli, Guilleminot, Hatoum, Höfer, Horn, Kolářová, Kozyra, Landau, Nieznalska, Renz, Rosenbach, Schönfeld, Siwek, Šimotová, Tanning, Trockel, Válová,
Weiss
Exhibition OPENING initiates the Museum’s activity, presenting works of artists who will work with us or their work is represented in the collection of the Foundation. The theme of the exhibition is the diversity of today’s contemporary art, both formally and substantively. Drawing, collage, painting, sculpture, video/ Bosnia, Ukraine, France, Palestine, Germany, Czech Republic, Poland, USA/political, provocative, existential.
Montanelli Museum
Nerudova 13, 118 00 Praha 1
11 From 114 - The Manes Association of Fine Artists
3 / 7 / 2009 — 31 / 7 / 2009
Prague Biennale 4
14 / 5 / 2009 — 26 / 9 / 2009
Maja Bajevic
Sigalit Landau
Daniel Pešta
Ulrike Rosenbach
Wo-man power
An imaginary row of women and an imaginary row of men as witnesses to the moment of human and posthumous being. Feminism is existential. Every artist of this type is distinctive and irreplaceable. Expressive or introvert and self-contained, a collective spirit or strictly private. A kind of humanitarian symbiosis runs through the work of certain artists who by their work long ago crossed the boundaries of the lands that they come from.
Societies objecting to nonsensical dictates, calling for freedom and independence, protesting against violence and the abuse of power. A passage that expresses a longing for the world where every individual has the right to develop its own personality.
The contemporary visual arts, including video, photography, painting and sculpture in their quality and interest act in a large way as testimony to the feminist artistic movement which originated at the beginning of the Seventies.
The development of the feverish activism of those years has had a lasting impact, which we can still see in today’s global world. The geographical origin of this art, i.e. the western part of our world view, long ago lost its exclusive meaning. Feminist tendencies have now expanded strongly to countries of the east and have taken on a new political import, in many cases dangerous for the artist itself. Women in countries which still live in conflict or where religiousness has turned into fanaticism, are seeking their identity and their self-consciousness takes shape and tend to be defined in a more elementary way than it does in more stable political systems.
Sigalit Landau, born in Jerusalem, is one of the most successful artists in Israel. Her art lies in pain, in exaltation, in suffering and in grace, in naturalism and in the chaos of the modern and a masterfully controlled dualism. She herself demands of her work: “No sentimentality”. Her installations and other work are critical. The past and the present merge together. Mortal sins and global conflicts often play a role. As do borders, identification and alienation. Extreme means of expression are typical. Her art is an embodiment, or better said an incarnation, of the structures of human existence. Sigalit directs her body like a compass seeking a lost path in an internal animal or poetic way. She seeks the balance in many forms, spiritual, philosophical, naturalist or symbolic. Sigalit Landau conceives her perception of the world multi-dimensionally. The external and internal world, the past and future as one whole.
Maja Bajevic, born in Sarajevo, comes from a country noted for its victims and fascism, from a country of religious intolerance. Her clear and strident critique of political dictatorship and the right to reveal injustices and crimes against humanity permeate all her work. In her videos, performances and installations she constantly confronts and connects the private with the public, intimacy with politics. The main theme remains the revelation of truth, the abuse of power, the perversions of fanatic religions and the marginalisation of the individual to the peripheries of society. In Maji Bajevic’s work we find a whole spectrum: a reality which is diametrically different to the reality of institutions, the diktat and governing hierarchies and religious intolerances, the collective identity and fate, the right of the individual and group to re-evaluate existing or experienced values. The tragedy of aggressive ideals and mechanisms, woman as a witness to these fateful constellations.
In the West the feminist movement has in a certain sense pluralized. Here not only women openly define their sexuality but also men are beginning to seek their identity, and not only in relation to emancipated women. The legalisation of homosexuality, lesbian relations and trans-sexuality lays bare and suggests male vulnerability and thus opens up a view into male identity.
Ulrike Rosenbach has been one of the most important personalities in media art in Germany and the world since the beginning of the Seventies. She founded the “School of creative feminism”. This pupil of Joseph Beuys has occupied a leading position in feminist art. Her untiring critique of the commonly traded picture of women is one of the main themes of her work. All the clichés of gender difference and the division of roles between men and women are tirelessly dealt with in her innumerable action performances. In doing so she reminds us that life is multi-layered and interdisciplinary. She draws attention to the fact that one of the roles of art is to point to problems which tomorrow will seem completely different. Ulrike Rosenbach emphasises complex life circumstances which are often collectively suppressed. Together with her colleagues of her time she defined new aspects of feminist art and today still gives space to questions about fundamental values for the future and mainly for contemplation. She confronts prejudices courageously and self-confidently through performance. She ignores referring to herself, does not display the beauty of the exhibited body, but creates a sort of autonomous world unchained from reality, a kind of private dance in a self-contained space. She follows a timeless path hand in hand with the past where we sense the cradle of all femininity.
Wo-man power is represented by a single man, Daniel Pešta, who always approaches the image of the woman from a feminist perspective. He’s able to enter her naturalness and energy, and in so doing woman as an object elides and transforms into a being who in an imaginary space is subject to different laws and thereby acquires a universal sensuality. Pešta crosses the borders of the polarity between the sexes and without losing his own identity accepts joint responsibility for parenthood, motherhood and fatherhood. In so doing he intentionally inhales female energy so that in a Taoist model he can wait and understand the processes which polarise the sexes, and capture them in their very beginning.
In other works he carefully and with mathematical precision gathers lived evidence and testimonies to life situations, political and social misdemeanours or feelings. No-one is either judge or accuser, matters speak for themselves, they don’t moralise or give evidence. Absolute quiet conserved in a sort of materialised document, which fascinates like a diary of something already lived or anticipated.
Karlín hall
Karlínská hala, Thámova 8, Praha (metro Křižíkova)
The Manes Association of Fine Artists (1887 – 2009)
14 / 5 / 2009 — 28 / 6 / 2009
History and present of the Czech union of fine artists.
Zdeněk Beran, Václav Bláha, Jana Budíková, Bedřich Dlouhý, Milan Grygar, Dagmara Hamsíková, Xénia Hoffmeisterová, Boris Jirků, Jiří Kaloč, Ivan Komárek, Jiří Kornatovský, Antonín Kroča, Aleš Ogoun, Peter Oriešek, Květa Pacovská, Daniel Pešta, Jiří Plieštik, Michael Rittstein, Jiří Sozanský, Jan Stoss, Marie Strahovská, Miloš Šejn, Petr Šmaha, Václav Špale, Jan Švankmajer, Jaroslav Urbánek, Markéta Urbanová, Martin Zálešák, Jasan Zoubek, Jiřina Žertová
Saarländische gallery in the Palais Am Festungsgraben
Europäisches Kunstforum e.V. Am Festungsgraben 1, 10117 Berlin, BRD
2008
Breakpoint 68, Those Who Chose Freedom Berlin
17 / 12 / 2008 — 22 / 1 / 2009
The exhibition of photographs presents the portraits of authors coming from the countries of the former eastern block who, being persecuted by the communist regime, left to live and create in the West. Out of the seventeen personalities, seven are Czech, one of whom, Václav Havel, did not emigrate. The other personalities include Milan Kundera, Pavel Kohout, Jiří Gruša, Arnošt Lustig, Ivan Blatný and Josef Škvorecký. The photographs were taken in the years 1980 – 1981 in various places all over the world, where the writers found a safe haven and where they were visited by the German journalist Jürgen Serke, accompanied by the photographers Wilfried Bauer and Robert Lebeck.
Photographs by Wilfried Bauer and Robert Lebeck
Czech Embassy in Berlin
Wilhelmstrasse 44/ Eingang Mohrenstrasse, 101 17 Berlin, BRD
Open: Tu – Th 2 – 6 pm
Tel. +49(0)30–226 38 0
http://www.mzv.cz/berlin
Breakpoint 68 Those who chose freedom
25 / 9 / 2008 — 5 / 12 / 2008
Photographs by Wilfried Bauer and Robert Lebeck
Videoart by Ulrike Rosenbach
The exhibition of photographs presents the portraits of authors coming from the countries of the former eastern block who, being persecuted by the communist regime, left to live and create in the West. Out of the seventeen personalities, seven are Czech, one of whom, Václav Havel, did not emigrate. The other personalities include Milan Kundera, Pavel Kohout, Jiří Gruša, Arnošt Lustig, Ivan Blatný and Josef Škvorecký. The photographs were taken in the years 1980 – 1981 in various places all over the world, where the writers found a safe haven and where they were visited by the German journalist Jürgen Serke, accompanied by the photographers Wilfried Bauer and Robert Lebeck.
Galerie Montanelli
Nerudova 13, 11800 Praha 1 Tel: 257 531 220
Intercity: Berlin - Praha
4 / 4 / 2008 — 22 / 6 / 2008
Graphic art/ Drawings
Berlin is represented by: Roland Fuhrmann, Harriet Groß, Philipp Hennevogl, Sybille Hotz, Michalis Pichler, Lilla von Puttkamer, Myrtia Wefelmeier and Gabriele Worgitzki
Prague is represented by: David Böhm & Jiří Franta, Markéta Hlinovská, Marta Hošťálsková-Hošková, Jan Kaláb (Point), Lukáš Machalický, Čestmír Přindiš, Ivana Štenclová and Jakub Švéda.
The exhibition emphasises the breadth of contemporary graphic art and drawings which, using a variety of techniques, emerge from paper into space and by so doing make it possible to look afresh at technical reproduction. The viewer is drawn into what are today entirely normal “idioms” of graphic art and drawing, follows the work of an artist in heaped materials, three-dimensional objects, graffiti variations, provocations in real space or, alternatively, in the fragile testimonies of the most practised of classical procedures. The works of this year’s seventeen young artists remind us that graphic art and drawing are everywhere around us.
Saarländische gallery in the Palais Am Festungsgraben
Europäisches Kunstforum e.V. Am Festungsgraben 1, 10117 Berlin, BRD