Autumn 2017 exhibitions

On October 19, the National Gallery in Prague inaugurates the autumn season in the Trade Fair Palace with a set of new exhibitions. Julian Rosefeldt’s already iconic tour de force of cinema and discourse, Manifesto, featuring Cate Blanchett, examines the artist’s role in today’s society while the research-based exhibition Biafra of Spirit explores how the students, who had come to Czechoslovakia from the so called Third World countries in the 1960s influenced Czechoslovak art, culture and social life. The new project in the cycle Introducing, devoted to the presentation of young and upcoming artists, offers the exhibition by Pedro Henriques whose work deals with speed, its understanding and impact on contemporary life. The forthcoming edition of StartPoint — Prize for European Art Academy Graduates showcases the work of the most promising young, soon-to-become artists on the threshold of their careers. Additionally, this autumn the Waldstein Riding School will host the large exhibition Archduke Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor: the Renaissance Ruler and Patron of Arts between Prague and Innsbruck, organized in a collaboration with the Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien and the Institute of Art History of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. And we are preparing more…

Julian Rosefeldt: Manifesto
October 19, 2017–January 7, 2018, Trade Fair Palace

Highly acclaimed film installation Manifesto by German artist Julian Rosefeldt pays homage to the moving tradition and literary beauty of artist manifestos, ultimately questioning the role of the artist in society today. Manifesto, the 13-channel film installation, draws on the writings of Futurists, Dadaists, Fluxus artists, Suprematists, Situationists, Dogma 95 and other artist groups, and the musings of individual artists, architects, dancers and filmmakers. Passing the ideas of Claes Oldenburg, Yvonne Rainer, Kazimir Malevich, André Breton, Elaine Sturtevant, Sol LeWitt, Jim Jarmusch, and other influencers through his lens, Rosefeldt has edited and reassembled thirteen collages of artists’ manifestos. Performing this “manifesto of manifestos” as a contemporary call to action, while inhabiting 13 different personas—among them a school teacher, a puppeteer, a newsreader, a factory worker and a homeless man—Australian actress Cate Blanchett imbues new dramatic life into both famous and lesser known words in unexpected contexts.

Prague presentation of Julian Rosefeldt’s Manifesto will be accompanied by a display of original art manifestos from Egidio Marzona’s Archives of the Avant-Gardes (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden).

Curator: Adam Budak

Related events:

November 16, 6pm
Jacques Rancier, The Politics of Fiction
Lecture in the frame of a symposium Prague—Paris. Philosophical Heritage of 1968-1989 (in a collaboration with the French Institute)

November 30, 6pm
Lecture: Luciano Chessa, Music the Dead Can Hear
(Hommage to Luigi Russolo in the frame of the Futurist Week and in a collaboration with the Italian Institute).

December 2, 12pm–12am + Night show, Studio Hrdinu
#LutherLenin
A Broadcasting: 3 stages, 3 channels, 36 hours of program with artists, activists and philosophers (in a collaboration with the Goethe Institute and Büro für prekäre Konzepte Berlin Prag).

December 7, 6pm
Julian Rosefeldt in a conversation with Adam Budak

Biafra of Spirit. Third World Students in Czechoslovakia
October 19, 2017–January 7, 2018, Trade Fair Palace

This exhibition explores the neglected connection between the cultural and political renaissance in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s and the decolonization project. It showcases films, posters and photographs by Africans and Asians who studied in Czechoslovakia during 1960s and 1970s as images of internationalism and cultural exchange. It also portrays Czechoslovak art, namely the Czechoslovak New Wave, as being influenced by the presence of Third World students.

Curator: Tereza Stejskalová with Zbyněk Baladrán

Introducing Pedro Henriques: Fasting
October 19, 2017–January 7, 2018, Trade Fair Palace

The work of Pedro Henriques drifts between image and object making, frequently occupying a kind of 2.5 space with an undefined ambiguous perceptive nature. “Fasting” brings together a series of recent and newly developed works branched under the notion of speed and its understanding and implications up on contemporary life. The exhibition will also introduce a video by Portuguese artist and scholar Miguel Soares.

Curator: Markéta Stará Condeixa

StartPoint 2017 – Prize for European Art Academy Graduates
October 19, 2017–December 10, 2017, Trade Fair Palace

The National Gallery in Prague is pleased to host StartPoint - Prize for European Art Academy Graduates for the 3rd time already. During the 15 years of its existence, the StartPoint has developed into the most extensive pan-European prize monitoring emerging artistic talents. Graduates from 39 art schools in 17 European countries are selected by the international jury of experts into the final show, presenting around 20 most distinctive artists.

Curator: Pavel Vančát

Coming soon:

Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria. A Rennaissance Ruler and Art Patron between Prague and Innsbruck
November 3, 2017–February 25, 2018, Waldstein Riding School

Two significant jubilees launched a large exhibition Ferdinand II. 450 Jahre Tiroler Landesfürst in Ambras Castle in Innsbruck and a subsequent one in the National Gallery in Prague. On display will be more than three hundred exhibits of various kinds, from paintings, precious arts and crafts objects, Renaissance armour, and valuable documents including the archduke’s own letter to products of nature and curiosities from his collections as well as everyday objects of the archduke and his family.

Curator: Blanka Kubíková

Norbert Grund (1717-1767). The Charm of Everyday
November 30, 2017–March 18, 2018, Kinsky Palace

This exhibition will present the scope of the genre paintings of this important representative of local rococo style, the 300th anniversary of whose birth will be commemorated on December 4. An exceptionally abundant repertory of themes reflects the various sources of inspiration of Grund’s works, whose selection will also be shown to the viewers for comparison. The exhibition will likewise be supplied with examples of the contemporaneous applied arts and prints made by Johann Georg Balzer, which prove the popularity of Grund’s oeuvre.

Curator: Marcela Vondráčková

Still on view:

Magdalena Jetelová: Touch of Time
till November 19, Trade Fair Palace

Site-specific installation transforms the Small Hall of the Trade Fair Palace into an expanded field. Conceived in a dialogue with the grandiose architecture of the venue, it recalls a devastated landscape of collective memory and reflects upon instability and fragility of the global social situation.

Curator: Milena Kalinovská

Ai Weiwei. Law of the Journey
till January 7, 2018, Trade Fair Palace

Law of the Journey is composed of a site-specific installation developed around the artist’s concern with the refugee crisis. A powerful tribute to human tragedy as well as testimony to human desire for home and a sense of belonging.

November 8, 7pm
Lecture: Nira Yuval-Davis, “‘The Refugee’ as a Paradoxical ‘Other’ under Neo-Liberal Globalization”

Curators: Jiří Fajt & Adam Budak