Prague City Gallery Has New Director

said councilman for culture, Milan Richter. He promised him a 100 day period of grace to become acquainted with the gallery and its issues. One of Bufka’s tasks will be to solve problems surrounding the renovation of Jan Hus, Alois Jirásek, and other sculptures. This problem arose from the agreement between the Gallery and an agency, which proposed that the profit from adverts covering the sculptures will be used for the renovation of sculptures. City Hall wasn’t in favour of such a solution, and considered it as disadvantageous for the city. It seems that now, after long negotiations, the situation is improving. Regarding the Jan Hus monument, we already reached an agreement with the agency Qeep. They will hand us over all the documents that resulted from the research works carried out on the sculpture. This paperwork will be used to define the conditions needed to process a regular tender, said Richter.

New ways

Milan Bufka announced that he will not interfere with artistic matters as these were entrusted to Karel Srp. Srp will resume his previous role in the Museum, and he will produce exhibitions that focus on contemporary art, big historic exhibitions (especially of the 20th century art), and on supporting young artists. At the moment we are preparing two major exhibitions that extend my original vision. They should be opened by the end of the year. The first one is called Creatures from Nowhere, and will give an overview of painting between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 50s with the advent of socialist realism. This is the very first such overview. The exhibition will be quite a unique one, and will be accompanied by many projections as well, said Karel Srp. The second exhibition is again quite unusual. It is called “Slovak Art and Czech Guests since 1906 until the Present Day”. It will take place in the newly renovated Golden Ring House. This is the very first time that Slovak art will be introduced to our country on such a scale. The exhibition will also commemorate the 90 year anniversary of the foundation of independent Czechoslovakia, said Karel Srp.

The Bratislava City Gallery and 1.Česká Investiční jointly participated on the exhibition. 1.Česká Investiční lends pieces from its collection of modern art, which is probably the largest one in Slovakia. The other two exhibitions are not as unique; nevertheless, they still are of a very high quality. The first one is the exhibition of Veronika Bromová’s artwork that will take place in the House at the Stone Bell. The second one carries a title “Beautiful people and Secret Wounds”, and you will be able to see it on the second floor of Old Town Hall. The exhibits come from the collection of FRAC Association from Calais, and the event was jointly produced with the Institute de France Prague.

Hopefully, the change will be for better

Previously, the people in charge of the gallery have been hampered in their work as they had only limited powers. With the current changes there is a hope that the situation will become more constructive. The opposition party also welcomed the division of functions, and the choice of the director. This could lead to the stabilisation of the situation, and a conclusion to the talks about its future, said Miroslav, the head of the ČSSD (Czech Social Democratic Party). There were some proposals in the past to merge the Gallery with Prague City Museum. This solution was refused by experts because it would probably lead to the domination of one institution over the other. For the time being the City has decided to drop this measure.