Prague’s First Private Museum Is Haunted by the Specter of Communism

PRAGUE — The specter of communism is haunting Prague’s artwork scene. Town’s first non-public museum, Kunsthalle Praha, opened in February, marks a transfer away from the state-funded tradition trade that when thrived however has struggled in recent times. 

For nearly a century, Prague’s artists and curators have relied on the Czech authorities to fund exhibitions and residencies. Underneath communism, the state was the only real supplier of cultural funds. After communism’s fall in 1989, the town clung to this communist-era relic whilst different European artwork hubs embraced non-public funding. Prague’s Nationwide Gallery continues to be solely funded by the state, as are a number of of the town’s quite a few residency packages. 

That assist construction has made the town significantly interesting to youthful artists from elsewhere in Europe. Prague is centrally situated close to different main artwork hubs like Vienna and Berlin, so it is a perfect crossroads for Central and Jap European artists. Czech artists and collectors are inclined to have shut relationships with counterparts within the artwork communities of close by cities, resembling Dresden and Katowice. “Artists from throughout Europe come to Prague. This type of change is the easiest way of creating an arts scene extra dynamic,” notes Christelle Havranek, chief curator at Kunsthalle Praha.

Prague is commonly the primary cease for current artwork faculty graduates in France and Germany. State funding additionally means that there’s ample funding for upstarts seeking to relocate, and the town’s comparatively small arts scene is less complicated to interrupt into than bigger ones in London or Paris. “They’ll come right here for 2, three, or 4 years,” says Piotr Sikora, who curates artist residencies at MeetFactory. “The scene is sort of welcoming and there are constructions in place to assist them dwell right here.” 

In contrast to most different European cities, which have a number of main museums that share cultural significance, Prague’s museum scene stays concentrated in a single establishment. Along with serving as a steward of the nation’s nationwide artwork assortment, the Nationwide Gallery can also be chargeable for championing youthful Czech artists and internet hosting touring exhibitions.

Nonetheless, funding cuts have stretched the already overworked establishment to the brink. Through the pandemic, the Czech Republic applied an austerity plan that resulted in sharp cuts to its cultural finances. Artists have complained of poor pay and fewer than luxurious therapy, in addition to a considerably diminished acquisitions finances.

A part of Kunsthalle Praha’s proposition for the town is to introduce a personal funding mannequin as a method of alleviating the monetary woes of the publicly run Nationwide Gallery. The museum’s founders and first donors are Petr and Pavlina Pudil, one of many Czech Republic’s most distinguished art-collecting households. Via their household basis, the Pudils funded the museum’s building and donated their complete assortment to the Kunsthalle on everlasting mortgage. 

This strategy has allowed the Pudils to bypass most of the constraints publicly funded establishments encounter, together with funding limitations and the local weather of the political atmosphere. “Public establishments are typically weak to political influences, which is one thing we’ve seen right here and in close by international locations like Poland and Hungary,” says Ivan Goossen, Kunsthalle Praha’s director. In distinction, Goossen notes, non-public establishments are solely restricted by the needs of their members and donors, which permits them to develop a extra strong program. Certainly, in 2020, the annual finances for the Nationwide Gallery was round $20 million, half of what it value to construct the Kunsthalle Praha.

Just like the German kunsthalles, non permanent exhibition areas that lack everlasting collections, Kunsthalle Praha is concentrated totally on rotating exhibitions that includes works from quite a lot of collections. In contrast to the Nationwide Gallery, which principally facilities on Czech artwork and constructing out its personal assortment, Kunsthalle Praha has a lean assortment and focuses its efforts internationally. 

Kunsthalle Praha’s inaugural present, Kinetismus: 100 Years of Electrical energy in Artwork, does simply that. Curated by Christelle Havranek and Peter Weibel, the director of the Zentrum für Kunst und Medien in Karlsruhe, Germany, the exhibition traces the historical past of electrical energy in artwork over the previous century. Kinetismus pairs works from artwork historical past textbook stalwarts like Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray with internationally acknowledged modern names like William Kentridge and Olafur Eliasson to discover how electrical energy has remodeled inventive practices. Drawn from collections all over the world, the chosen works lean closely on dwell spectacle (lights, sound, bodily magnitude) and interactive participation — a transparent signal that the museum’s inaugural exhibition is supposed to be remembered.

Along with its international aspirations, Kinetismus seeks to enlarge the work of Zdeněk Pešánek, a little-known Czech artist who was a key determine within the nation’s early Twentieth-century avant-garde scene. In 1932, Pešánek was additionally chosen to design a collection of sculptures supposed to adorn the facade of the Zenger electrical substation, which now homes Kunsthalle Praha. As a part of the exhibition, the museum recreated the neon and plastic works, which mysteriously disappeared within the Nineteen Thirties after being displayed at an exhibition in Paris.

Regardless of being privately run, artifacts of the communist state are deeply ingrained in Kunsthalle Praha. Prior to now, the Zenger substation was a vital component within the metropolis’s electrical grid, powering elements of Prague’s legendary tram system. And like many aristocrats within the former Jap bloc, the Pudils profited from the wave of privatization that occurred within the Nineteen Nineties. In Petr Pudil’s case, he acquired the nation’s state-owned coal-mining operations. 

When plans to launch the museum have been first introduced in 2019, Pudil’s position in post-1989 privatization got here to the fore. After an area artwork outlet printed an investigation into the household’s funds, some artists and curators started to oppose the brand new establishment. Their considerations have been rooted in each Pudil’s libertarian ideology, which they noticed as detrimental to the native arts neighborhood, and his involvement in an environmentally damaging trade. For his or her half, the Pudil household maintains they’ve lengthy since divested from coal and now give attention to photo voltaic and different extra environmentally pleasant power sources.

“I feel the ’90s actually left a foul style in some individuals’s mouths. Lots of people actually see that interval because the core of our troubles immediately,” explains Tereza Stejskalová, this system director of the Czech department of Tranzit, a pan-European arts group. These troubles — which lengthen to different artwork hubs, resembling Warsaw, Bratislava, and Berlin — embody more and more unaffordable housing and lowering funding for the humanities.

In Berlin, a metropolis whose quickly growing artwork scene has served as a mannequin and a warning for a lot of in Prague, one other non-public kunsthalle challenge has attracted unwelcome consideration. The controversy across the Kunsthalle Berlin has equally centered on the privatization of arts establishments and its results on the town. Earlier this month, greater than 650 artists, critics, and curators signed an open letter denouncing the brand new exhibition corridor. 

The shadow of late communism has additionally affected the priorities of artists in Jap Europe. A youthful era of artists and curators have grown up in a post-communist panorama that was far wealthier than that of their mother and father. Higher assets for journey and higher funding alternatives have pushed them to foster connections with different artwork scenes in former Jap bloc international locations. Curator Sikora and others have been instrumental in refocusing consideration inward, whereas organizations just like the East Europe Biennial Basis have fashioned regional alliances.

“There’s a motion that claims: Possibly we don’t want the West as a lot anymore. Possibly we are able to join with different Jap European international locations as a substitute,” states Stejskalová. By providing an internationally centered program that emphasizes Czech artists, Kunsthalle Praha appears decided to stroll the road between East and West, in addition to previous and current.