Prague's Independent Spirit in the Negative Spaces

When I first arrived in Prague, my roommate and I endeavored to get all the ‘touristy stuff’ out of the way quickly.  Unfortunately when we arrived at the National Gallery museums, we found that we were essentially the only visitors.  The first, at centuries-old Sternberg Palace, was housed within the expansive Prague Castle complex and we got a little lost as we tried to find the museum’s subterranean entrance. Inside, however, was room after room of rich medieval and Renaissance paintings. Though the galleries had well-known painters from beyond the Czechlands, whose work I love, such as Dürer, El Greco, Goya, Rembrandt and Tintoretto, names that would draw scores of tourists elsewhere in Europe (or internationally), the galleries themselves were almost entirely devoid of other visitors. I actually think that someone assigned each of us a personal ‘minder’ as we were well outnumbered by the museum guards. According to the website, many of the works were from the collection of Emperor Rudolf II or contributed by 19th century patrons, but I am amazed that more of the works weren’t looted by the Nazis or confiscated by the Soviets for their many religious subjects.  However, the holdings at the Sternberg Palace reflect the international appreciation of the Old Masters far more than it reflects Czech tastes and themes in fine art.  For that, the place to go is right in the neighborhood of our Osadni dorm, at Veletržní Palace.

Though this branch of the National Gallery feels much more like an architectural cross of the Guggenheim and the Met (big glass-sided exterior, central interior courtyard encircled by floors of gallery space), the contents include excursions into the history of modern and contemporary art amid solid showings by the 19th century Czech titans like Alfons Mucha and Frantisek Kupka as well as other regional artists. Like the museum housing Old Masters, Veletržní actually has quite a number of famous painters, though the works on display could not be considered their best. There is a surprising number of Italian Futurist artists, as well as a section on Fluxus and its Czech offshoot, though I had long considered the movement quite centered on New York. Most telling, however, is the curators’ introduction to the gallery, which contextualizes the collection and purposefully differentiates it from those found in New York or Berlin:

The National Gallery in Prague's international modern art collections were most affected by the totalitarian regime's interventions designed to curb Czech contact with the world's culture. Nevertheless, several major international artworks were acquired during the brief interregnums of liberty.  Unlike museums in the free world, where collections could be built virtually uninterrupted and with an 'ideal' focus in mind, international works of modern art often found their way to the National Gallery via unusual paths...


 

Even in the way that it is curated, the Veletržní evokes a certain independent Czech spirit that I’ve noticed again and again at different contemporary monographs and exhibitions in Prague.  To name a few, there was the stubbornly DYI aesthetic and fringe subjects of octogenarian photographer Miroslav Tichy, the tenacious fascination with technology and digital cameras’ burst modes of another old-school photograhper, Bohdan Holomicek, and the obsessive methods of documentarian Lukáš Přibyl and his four part Holocaust series Forgotten Transports in which he sought to unearth unseen photos and untold stories. Perhaps the most famous contemporary Czech artists is sculptor David Cerny, who provided giant babies for Prague's TV tower and caused offense all over the EU with a state-funded work called Entropa.  Though one of my professors mentioned that the Veletržní doesn’t have a good reputation among contemporary artists (though this is probably true of almost any museum-space which stagnates, becoming blander and institutional), it highlights one essential element of Czech culture: the desire to catch up, culturally (as well as politically and economically) after the decades of exclusion and isolation.  At the same time, there is high value given to the certain artists, visual and otherwise, who went against the grain in the Communist era, as well today’s continuing tinkerers and experimenters.

(my photo, from the Fluxus collection at Veletržní palác, as well as shots from when Bohdan Holomicek came to one of my classes)