Arts & Leisure

Nice to meet you

Guest Writer — Fri, 18 May 2012 08:03:37 +0000

“Modern prose cannot be written without a certain degree of erudition, without knowledge of what is going on in the other arts, especially fine art. Fine art and literature are indelibly linked.” – The Homework by Bohumil Hrabal, 1970.

Presenting side-by-side the work of two creative types who never met, lived in different countries and expressed themselves through different mediums sounds like the act of a desperate curator. But Two Geniuses now showing at the Gate Gallery cleverly demonstrates the shared world view of Irish artist Francis Bacon and Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal.

“I started to talk about it with Serena (exhibition curator Serena Baccaglini) and others about three years ago, but from talking to doing is a long time,” Monika Burian Jourdan, director of Vernon Gallery who organized the exhibition, told Czech Position.

Burian Jourdan and Baccaglini have cooperated on two other big Prague art shows in recent years — Amedeo Modigliani in 2010 and this year’s Tauromaquia: Face to Face with the Bull. Baccaglini has studied the phenomenon of Francis Bacon’s Italian drawings, which are what is on display here. The pieces are from the collection of Bacon’s Italian companion during his final years, Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino, to whom the artist bequeathed his drawings. How Hrabal came to be involved is another story.

A different kind of dialogue

“Our specialty (Burian Jourdan and Baccaglini) is to create provocations, present foreign artists in conjunction with Czech ones to show the similarities and differences,” said Burian Jourdan. “Before I could even think of a Czech artist, Maria Gloria started to write an imaginary dialogue between Bacon and Hrabal.”

Italian poet and writer Maria Gloria Grifoni translated Hrabal’s book Bambino di Praga into Italian, and in the process noticed the similarities between the two figures. The dialogue Grifoni created, which brings the two creatives “together” for the first time, will be performed June 20 and 21. The play deals with Bacon and Hrabal’s fates and a dialogue between the painter and poet, which explores the features they have in common.

Burian Jourdan says the specific text from Hrabal that was the inspiration to bring the two together is: “Weakness is my strength, defeat is my victory, timidity is my competence, solitude is my crowd, cravenness is my mettle, lewdness is my purity, artifice is my portrait.”

‘The two artists were very much alike, even the fact that they both experienced difficult moments at the end of their lives.’“The two artists were very much alike, even the fact that they both experienced difficult moments at the end of their lives,” she added. Hrabal committed suicide by jumping from the window of the clinic where he was receiving treatment. Bacon died alone in a small clinic in Spain. But their lives had other parallels as well.

“Both seemed to be living in a cage. Hrabal’s was the communist system suppressing him; he was escaping into writing and creativity,” Burian Jourdan said. “Bacon was in a cage of sexual orientation; homosexuality was illegal in Britain at that time, and he was very lonely and looking for friendship and affection. With creativity, painting, drawing, he found his way out.”

The Italian works

The drawings on display belong to the last decade of Bacon’s artistic activity and the subjects are those that Bacon became associated with in the 1950s — the Popes after painter Diego Velasquez and portraits of businessmen and friends and images of the crucifixion. Done between 1977 and Bacon’s death in 1992, the artist was spending the majority of his free time in Italy and Spain.

The trips allowed him to escape the pressure that was put on him by his gallery in England, and return to the joy of creating art. Bacon’s interest in Velasquez’s popes almost bordered on obsession, as can be seen by the many sketches and other works at Gate. While the sketches are a bit spooky, the colors in the oils are vibrant and fairly pop off the paper. The portrait at the top of the stairs is Burian Jourdan’s favorite.

“It has a very special expression in the eyes, and the color composition,” she said. “Bacon is brilliant with how he handles colors, but a tradition of our exhibitions is to feature drawings because in the drawing you can recognize the master’s hand.”

Bacon began to gain fame after World War II with a style called new figuration, which emphasized new expressive devices calling attention to contours of human figures and emotions. While he was inspired by old masters like Picasso and Velazquez, photos, x-rays and films were also a source of ideas. It’s interesting to consider his work in the context of current art; the tension and disruption are apparent and relevant when you consider today’s contemporary art of video and mixed media. ‘Their professional success never translated into personal happiness.’

This is the first time an exhibition devoted to Francis Bacon has been shown in the Czech Republic. The fact the Gate Gallery is next door to favorite Hrabal haunt U Zlatého tygra is probably a coincidence, but an appropriate one at that. Burian Jourdan says the links between the two geniuses go on and on.

“And here lies another parallel: both artists were esteemed in their lifetime but suffered from extreme solitude. Their professional success never translated into personal happiness.”

Two Geniuses
Through July 22
Gate Gallery and Information Center
Husova 21, Prague 1
www.francisbacon.cz
www.galeriegate.cz

—Jacy Meyer is a Prague-based freelance journalist

Radical filmmaker has Prague retrospective

Michael Stein — Thu, 17 May 2012 14:17:21 +0000

It is not uncommon to find artists who came to film from work in other mediums. Some are painters turned filmmakers, while others turned to film from work in theater or writing. German filmmaker Alexander Kluge’s path to film was as strikingly different as his work continues to prove itself. Just having turned 80 years old, Kluge is as radical as ever, and could still serve as a signpost for the young generation of filmmakers.

Alexander Kluge in Prag is a retrospective that covers the last 50 years in which the maverick German director has been forging his uncompromising artistic vision. The show’s curator, František Zachoval, told Czech Position that Kluge’s still too little-known body of work presents an entirely new perspective on the art of film, questioning the fundamentals of the film medium itself.

For Zachoval showing these films at Prague’s Academy of Fine Arts from May 17 through 19, their first screening in the Czech Republic, is vital for the coming generation of Czech filmmakers to be exposed to.

“His methods are almost totally unknown in the Czech Republic, which is why we are providing a broader presentation of his work extending from the 1960s to the present,” he said.

Zachoval also considers it very important to note that Kluge is not only a filmmaker and that his work straddles the lines between different mediums. “He occupies a position at the intersection of classic film, literature and subversive television production. This resistance to fitting within the confines of any medium is very important for the young generations of artists here to see, which again is why we’re showing a cross-section of Kluge’s work.”

Filming essays

Not only did Kluge not set out to become a filmmaker, he was hardly involved in the arts at all. As a law student Kluge came into contact with philosopher Theodor Adorno and served as a legal counsel for the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt, where Adorno was active. At that point Kluge was writing short stories, but Adorno steered him towards filmmaking in spite of the fact that he wasn’t a great admirer of the art form.

Adorno introduced Kluge to Fritz Lang, who was filming The Tiger of Eschnapur (Der Tiger von Eschnapur). Kluge reportedly had less interest in watching the legendary director than getting off the film set and working on the short stories that would be a foundation for his early films.

Zachoval says that it was Adorno who remained the prevailing influence on Kluge, who would make his debut film Brutality in Stone (Brutalität im Stein) in 1960, a short work of montage attacking German amnesia towards its role in World War II and the older generation of filmmakers who let German society avoid the difficult subject of their responsibility.

Things came to a head in 1962 when the Oberhausen Manifesto was proclaimed by 26 young German directors that formed the New German Cinema movement. The battle cry of the group was “Papas Kino ist tot” (Papa’s cinema is dead) and besides Kluge it included a roll call of the best German filmmakers of the second half of the 20^th century, such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog, Volker Schlöndorff, Margarethe von Trotta, Hans-Jürgen Syberberg and Wim Wenders.

Stylistic evolution

According to Zachoval, Kluge moved past the use of collage and combining documentary and fictional shots.

Zachoval says that Kluge’s films from the ‘80s, including two of the films being screened in Prague — The Power of Emotion (Die Macht der Gefühle) and Miscellaneous News (Vermischte Nachrichten) — draw the viewer into a maze of small and, at first glance, unrelated events. Kluge’s films from this period can’t be easily summarized and don’t have a single, clear point. This is where he departed from the work of his compatriots as filmmakers such as Fassbinder, Herzog, Schlöndorff and Wenders have more or less kept to the classical dramatic form in their work.

“These more fragmented works are based on a single event, experience or insight and aim to evoke a process of association for his audience. And here his work is very radically near to the principle of literature,” Zachoval said.

The connection with literature is not surprising as Kluge has continued to write, and his work in this medium is regarded very highly as well. Though Kluge’s films are certainly radical and bypass many of the conventions of the medium, Zachoval insists that it doesn’t belong to the tradition of avant-garde filmmaking.

“His recent work has a closer relationship to philosophy, sociology and literature. In particular, his most recent monumental projects are clearly visual deconstructions in the sense of the word associated with Karl Marx and Martin Heidegger.”

Zachoval says that Kluge’s work does have some counterparts among Czech filmmakers such as Karel Vachek and Ondřej Vavrečka. As Kluge’s film experiments grew even more radical in the ‘80s, he departed even further from the academic quality that Zachoval sees as so prevalent among even the young generation of Czech filmmakers. Perhaps the exposure to a filmmaker who uses the medium to look at social and political issues rather than a neatly fashioned story will strike a chord here, and will influence the next generation of director to explorations of their own.

Alexander Kluge in Prag
May 17 – 19
Academy of the Fine Arts Prague
U Akademie 4, Prague 7

Czech Literature Night goes European

Michael Stein — Wed, 16 May 2012 11:05:04 +0000

What began as a Czech project called Literature Night has now spread from Prague across the continent, with Czech and European authors appearing and having their work read from London to Yerevan. In its fourth year Czech Centre’s European Literature Night (ELN) is celebrated differently in different locations, whether it’s a showcase of emerging writers at the British Library, Romani writers in Munich, or Czech actors reading from European writing in Prague.

European literature is an imposing cultural category, evoking literary titans such as Shakespeare, Cervantes, Goethe, Tolstoy, Proust and Kafka among so many others that a single lifetime likely doesn’t provide sufficient time to read and re-read them to the degree they deserve. In fact, one could argue that European literature is sometimes presented as too imposing, an airless pantheon of genius that can only be studied and intellectually embalmed.

What makes matters worse, in terms of time constraint, is the fact that European writers continue to write, adding to the mountainous pile of words that explore, celebrate, regale against and even prophecy the end of the human condition. How can anyone possibly choose new and often unknown names to add to their reading list when the list is already populated with so many recognized classics?

This is where ELN serves a vital function. Rather than getting a headache sorting through literary webpages and “Best of” lists it allows people to get out on the town and get in touch with some of the best of both old and new writing.

Year six in Prague 5

As the point of origin of ELN, Prague is now on its sixth year of celebrating European writing by having well-known Czech actors give readings at a varied and always interesting choice of locations. Last year’s Prague events were centered around the city’s Libeň district, an area famously associated with Bohumil Hrabal. This year’s events will take place in Smíchov – Prague 5, with readings taking place in an old train car, a 16^th century water tower and a Baroque summer palace among other sites.

Among the work being read is Austrian writer Josef Haslinger’s novel Jáchymov about the tragedy of communist imprisonment of Czech goaltender Bohumil Modrý. The Czech translation of Jáchymov will be read by actor Jan Budař.

Another European writer with a Czech connection is Poland’s Janusz Rudnicki, whose book Mój Wehrmacht (My Wehrmacht, and into Czech as Mein Kampf a moje jiné boje) was recently released in a Czech translation. Rudnicki has previously lived in Prague among other Central European cities. Rudnicki’s short story The Sorrows of Idiot Augustus is one of the standouts of Dalkey Archive’s Best European Fiction 2012.

Spreading the word

ELN doesn’t only give a boost to writers and readers but to publishers, especially publishers specializing in lower profile European fiction (i.e. everything besides UK/Irish writing and Scandinavian crime fiction). One of those publishers is the newly established UK-based Stork Press, which specializes in writers from Central and Eastern Europe. One of the publisher’s upcoming novels, The Finno-Ugrian Vampire by Hungarian Noémi Szécsi was chosen for London’s ELN.

“Having one of our books selected for the ELN event is hugely important.Literature in translation comprises less than 5% of the UK publishing market which is a scary number if we look at the publishing markets in countries like Germany, France or Poland,” Stork Press publishing director Joanna Zgadzaj told Czech Position.

“ELN is all about celebrating literature in translation and we have already seen interest in the book from high profile magazines and newspapers because of The Finno-Ugrian Vampire's selection,” Zgadzaj said, adding that US and Canadian rights were recently sold as well.

Szécsi herself agrees with the notion that ELN provides a valuable opportunity to grant exposure to a literature that is woefully under-known in the UK among other large markets. Asked how much she thinks the British public knows about Hungarian writing Szécsi gave Czech Position a stark assessment.

“Practically nothing, I guess. Maybe they know that a Hungarian writer–Imre Kertész was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2002–and as far as I know translations of the novels by Sándor Márai were well received in Britain. But if a Hungarian novel gets translated in Western Europe, it is translated into German; Hungarian culture traditionally has strong ties to Germany,” she said.

“So far the imported cultural goods of Hungary have been the Holocaust and totalitarian dictatorships, so it is time to show something else.”

The German connection

Czech culture also has strong ties to Germany. With many more Czech books translated into German than into English, Germany and Austria’s ELN events tend to aim for a more in-depth focus.

Munich’s ELN, for example, will present an under represented aspect of Czech literature with the appearance of two Czech Romani writers Erika Olahová and Irena Eliášová. Olahová’s writing has previously appeared in English translation in Telegram Books’ 2006 anthology Povídky: Short Stories by Czech Women. Also participating in the evening’s events are Belgrade-born German Romani writer Jovan Nikolič and Hungarian Romani writer Tamás Jónás. The readings will consist of work specially translated for ELN.

Vienna’s literature night will feature Czech screen legend Zdenka Procházková, star of classic Czech films such as And the Fifth Horseman Is Fear, reading the work of another classic, Karel Hynek Mácha. A German translation of Mácha’s seminal epic poem ‘Máj’ will be presented along with an exhibition of Mácha’s life and work prepared by the Museum of Czech Literature.

Perhaps the most unorthodox event of all will take place in Berlin, where local Czech inhabitants of the German capital involved in presenting Czech culture will select their favorite Czech books and writers to read and discuss at Shakespeare and Sons bookstore, with authors including Petra Hůlová, Ferdinand Peroutka and Pavel Kohout.

Other highlights of ELN include the Stockholm release of Nanobook by Czech rock band Tata Bojs bassist Mardoša and illustrated by fellow band member Milan Cais. In Madrid there will be a tribute night to Václav Havel, while Tomáš Zmeškal will participate in Amsterdam’s ELN.

European Literature Night, May 16

Program in different cities available here

Prague’s Brooklyn celebrates its separate identity

Raymond Johnston — Mon, 14 May 2012 08:08:46 +0000

The Žižkov district of the Czech capital has always been a bit different, marching to its own drummer. It is often described as Prague’s Brooklyn, with a mix of working class people and artists. Long-time residents know the area as the “Free Republic of Žižkov.” A series of events and exhibitions under the banner Žižkov Sobě — roughly meaning Žižkov to itself — enbraces the dictrict’s uniqueness.

The festival, which is in its fifth year and runs until the end of June, is intended to bring culture and leisure activities to nontraditional places that normally serves different purposes, according to Eva Kociánová, the PR representative of Pálac Akropolis, one of the organizers of the festival.

“We want to attract people who normally wouldn’t go to shows and events,” she said, adding the festival helps to link different generations and groups of people in the diverse neighborhood. All of the events are free.

The festival has already started, with an exhibition of photographs commemoration the 80th season of the Club of Amateur Photographers in Žižkov (KFAŽ). Dozens of pictures — both framed originals and reproductions grouped together on large display boards — are at the Prague 3 office of insurer Všeobecná zdravotní pojišťovna (VZP). “The selection was made by current members of the club and focused on Žižkov as a theme,” Kociánová said.

Some local history can be seen in the archival selection, with black-and-white images of the statue of giant horse statue of Jan Žižka under construction and later surrounded by visitors shortly after it was finished. Long-gone and altered vistas appear side by side with some places that are virtually unchanged, with only the fashions of passersby to show the passage of time.

Along with landscape shots in various formats there are artistic efforts including posed nude models, studies of textures and contemplative portraits. “The border between amateur and professional is very thin,” Věra Matějů, the head of the Czech Union of Photographers (SČF) said at the opening of the exhibition. “It is good that the club has continued because it has given Žižkov a chronicle and a memory,” she said, adding that over the years several well-known photographers have been members. Some of the photographs in the exhibition are attributed to specific artists, but the bulk are presented as anonymous works.

A second photo exhibition will start June 1 in the foyer of Pálac Akropolis. Křehké omítky, or Brittle Renderings, will show recent works by Jitka Kopejtková. “They are photographs of graffiti, and not only from Žižkov facades,” Kociánová said. This exhibition shows a more contemporary look at the neighborhood and urban environment in general.

The pictures capture the current trends in street art, such as stenciled images as well as details of posters. Weather and the interaction of anonymous people often transform the original images into something new — the original becomes a collective artwork in the freewheeling gallery of urban streets, which Kopejtková captures in photographs.

Music on the hill

Two days of concerts on Parukářka, the hilltop park near Olšanské náměstí, will probably attract the most interest from the public. Local ska band the Chancers headline on June 13, with support form Pub Animals, Chaotic and DJs from Radio 1. A fixture on the Prague music scene since 1998, the Chancers have a mixed Czech and British lineup fronted by Simon Ruffskank.

Their music appears on their own albums as well as international compilations.“Four years ago we prepared an evening of ska and it was quite successful,” Kociánová said. “So it has become a tradition to devote an evening to ska.” But it is not the only type of music that is popular in the neighborhood. “Certainly I do not think that people from Žižkov can be characterized only as lovers of ska,” she added.

For the ska-skeptical the following day offers a different genres, dub and hip-hop. UK-based band Dub Pistols is the headliner, with support from Czech act Bonus and the return of DJs from Radio 1. Music by Dub Pistols has appeared on soundtracks for films such as “Blade II,” “Bad Company” and “Mystery Men.” The band’s hits include “There’s Gonna Be a Riot.”Aside from the music, there will be a fashion show. In case of inclement weather on either day, the concerts will move to Pálac Akropolis.

Taking it to the streets

Public performances make up a large part of the festival. The ensemble Traffic Dance, a project of Spitfire Ensemble, will perform “Mogal na cestách” on several different days beginning May 24 at náměstí Jiřího z Poděbrad and at Parukářka. “The core of Traffic Dance is a specially adapted decommissioned firetruck. It was converted by artist Lukáš Rais to serve as a theater and music stage,” Kociánová said. “Mogal na cestách” includes fire dancers and percussion.

Toward the end of the festival, on June 27, the group will perform the premiere of “Drums.” “For ‘Drums,’ the truck will be fitted out with special musical instruments,” Kociánová said. Later that same day, Traffic Dance will present the premiere of “Show CZ,” a new Czech version of “Show,” which played at last year’s festival.

A visiting company from Germany lends an international flavor to the street performances. Bängditos Theater will stage the Prague premiere of “Überfluss,” an absurdist drama set around the dedication of a fountain. The well-planned ceremony goes a bit awry as the fountain fails to cooperate.

Other events in festival include a day for children and families, juggling workshops and performances, a table football competition, and a tournament for the Swedish lawn game called kubb.

Žižkov Sobě
until June 26
Various venues including Pálac Akropolis, VZP office at Orlická 2, náměstí Jiřího z Poděbrad, Parukářka, Židovské pece
All events are free
zizkovsobe.cz

Czech Surrealist brought out of hiding

Michael Stein — Mon, 07 May 2012 05:52:16 +0000

Jindřich Heisler: Surrealism under Pressure at Chicago’s Art Institute presents 70 works by the still little-known Czech Surrealist whose work straddles the line between a variety of artistic media. The exhibition also underlines the significant role Prague played as an important outpost of Surrealism, second only to Paris.

Jindřich Heisler joined the Surrealist movement in 1938 as a poet and was a close associate of Toyen (Marie Čermínová), Jindřich Štyrský and Karel Teige. More so than most artists his creative pursuits would be heavily affected by the historical turmoil of the times. Heisler, who was half-Jewish, spent the first years of World War II living in the Nazi Protectorate and when his deportation number came up late in 1941 he was forced to go into hiding until the end of the war. Two years later, with the threat of communist takeover imminent, he and Toyen emigrated to Paris.

“Heisler has a history of being a mystery man. He was not well-known even in Czechoslovakia. And as we now see his work in a certain complexity we will also be able to situate him, because he has never actually been compared with anyone,” professor of Slavic languages and literatures at the University of Michigan Jindřich Toman told Czech Position. Besides having a scholarly interest in Heisler’s work, Toman also happens to be the artist's nephew.

Curator of the Art Institute’s department of photography Matthew S. Witkovsky told Czech Position that following recent exhibitions of Surrealist art in Paris, London and New York it has become clear that after the City of Lights, Prague was the second greatest center for Surrealist activity in the world during its heyday.

“So it’s only fitting that the great actors in that movement should be accorded attention,” he said, adding that visitors to the show have focused their attention on Heisler as an individual rather than as a Czech Surrealist.

Tale of two cities

Nevertheless, there are differences between French and Czech Surrealism. Besides the longer history of the movement in Paris there was a much more developed and contentious approach to who belonged to the Surrealist movement and who didn’t, with figures such as Antonin Artaud and Georges Bataille being expelled by Surrealism’s founder André Breton.

“The war marked the French group in a different way than the Czech group. André Breton was in exile in the United States while in the Protectoratethere was a very intensive wartime Surrealism and Heisler is actually a prime example of that,” Toman said.

Another difference can be seen in the long-term impact of the movement, which Toman considers to have lasted longer among Czech artists of the ‘50s and ‘60s all the way to contemporary artists such as Jan Švankmajer,as the recent exhibition of Czech and Slovak Surrealists attests to.

Photographics

For Toman one of the exhibition’s major points of interest is the unorthodox manner in which Heisler created his photographs, particularly notable in the collection titled From the Same Dough.

“Heisler called it photographics and this is a pretty interesting photographic technique. We don’t know exactly how he was doing these things, but we assume he was applying pliable material like Vaseline on glass and was using the glass in lieu of a negative.”

What is all the more impressive is that this technique was developed by Heisler after he went into hiding. Under circumstances challenging to any kind of artistic creation Heisler managed to achieve striking and innovative results in a medium that he came to as an amateur.

“What’s great about Heisler’s photography, or at least what interests us in doing this show, is that he shows where photography meets drawing, where it meets sculpture and where it meets literature and book arts,” Witkovsky said.

Whether it is in the photo layouts accompanying his poems, From the Strongholds of Sleep (of which only six copies are known to exist) or later images using dolls, pictures and miscellaneous objects, Heisler’s photographs defy easy categorization. His last work, the 1952 Alphabet creates an imaginary alphabet constructed out of human figures and a range of diverse objects including swords, keys, antlers and umbrellas among many other things, resulting in a Surrealist simplicity as striking as many of the art works the movement produced.

New directions

Considering that he only lived to be 38 years old and spent the war years in hiding, Heisler has a body of work that is extremely varied in its incorporation of poetry, art, photography and a very modern form of sculpture and installation. That variety seems even more impressive in examining the threads linking his work to a number of later artistic developments.

Together with Toyen and a group of Surrealist compatriots Heisler started the first postwar Surrealist journal, Néon. The magazine didn’t survive long due to the 1948 communist takeover of Czechoslovakia from which funds could no longer be accessed, but represented evidence of the continued innovation of the avant-garde creation that had been brutally interrupted by World War II.

The Art Institute show is presenting all five issues of the magazine, the layout of which makes it hard to believe that Néon dates from the late ‘40s rather than the ‘60s.

“The look of Néon absolutely anticipates the look of the countercultural journals of the ‘50s and ‘60s. It’s explosive and has a mixture of typing, handwriting and drawing. It has a scribbling kind of look and was very dense,” Witkovsky said.

But while much of postwar Surrealism was revitalized by a connection with the new artistic movement of Abstract Expressionism, Heisler’s relative isolation during the war and as a Czech émigré in Paris from 1947 compelled him to follow his own artistic path.

“Heisler is really amazing in that regard. He didn’t have an active relation like Breton, who came to the US and met painters like Gorky, Mattaand other Abstract Expressionist painters. Heisler was in hiding and then he was an émigré in Paris with a small circle of friends,” Witkovsky said.

The aesthetic bonds connecting Heisler’s work to subsequent cultural movements are very different than those commonly made with other Surrealist artists. “[Heisler’s work] is not pointing to Abstract Expressionism, but it is pointing to the Beat Generation and in France to the Situationist International, also in the subjects it treats,” Witkovsky said.

As appreciation of the avant-garde movements of the ‘20s and ‘30s continues to grow Witkovsky sees good prospects for previously uncelebrated artists like Heisler.

“Surrealism is an amazing movement because it keeps on getting renewed and you see these new figures come to the fore when our attention wanders off a straight, single path.”

Jindřich Heisler: Surrealist under Pressure
The Art Institute of Chicago
Through July 1

Ion Barladeanu: ‘Art Against All Odds’

Guest Writer — Sat, 05 May 2012 11:26:43 +0000

His story has been told by The Guardian, the BBC and even made into a movie. From complete obscurity, Ion Barladeanu, a Romanian artist in his sixties, a freedom fighter of sorts who for much of his life chose to live outside of the system, skyrocketed to fame shortly after his work was discovered while he was living by the garbage bins behind an apartment block.

Before this time, Barladeanu had only shared his remarkable collages with a few trusted friends. “Especially before ’89; otherwise there was a risk of being jailed,” he told Czech Position. Today his work has been shown in Paris and London alongside that of Andy Warhol and Marcel Duchamps. In his most comprehensive exhibition to date (featuring around 200 pieces from the late 1970s until today), Barladeanu’s work can now be seen at Prague’s Czech Centre in “Art Against All Odds.”

“He had only obstacles to doing his art; society was against him, his father [a communist] was against what he was doing, he had no training ... but he still found a way to make his art function for him,” says Dan Popescu, the curator. “It’s hard to find an artist who uses art for inner purposes. For him his art was always a way to survive. He poured everything inside his art.”

Popescu, owner of the H’art gallery in Bucharest, was the one who paved the way to Barladeanu’s remarkable path after being introduced to the collages by another artist. Popescu, who regularly attends art fairs, brought Barladeanu and his work to the Basel Art Fair, which led to shows in Paris and London; as they say, the rest is history.

Barladeanu’s history began in 1946, the year he was born in the village of Zapodeni. “For more than 30 years he refused to become an ‘honorable citizen’,” Popescu writes in the exhibition’s accompanying catalogue. He worked various jobs throughout the communist era, “refusing socialist labor,” Popescu says (which led to a three-month jail sentence at one point), eventually ending up in Bucharest were he worked as a grave digger, a security guard, a frame saw worker and even as an unqualified worker at General Secretary of Romania’s communist party Nicolae Ceausecu’s infamous “House of the People.”

It was after 1989 that Barladeanu eventually found himself, as did many other Romanians at the time, with little work. From 1996 up until his remarkable discovery in 2007, he was living in the area where garbage was discarded behind the apartment blocks doing small jobs for the people who lived there.

There he also continued making his collages, which he had started with in the late 1970s (preceded by drawings and portraits). Using whatever resources he could find, Barladeanu cut up magazines and fashioned the various images into powerful, provocative, political, humorous compositions that each tell their own story. “I wanted to be a movie maker,” said Barladeanu, who thinks of each of his pieces as a film. “Working with collage helped me do what I could with no means whatsoever.”

The manner in which Popescu has displayed the works for the exhibition speaks to Barladeanu’s cinematic ambitions, “It resembles a film strip,” Popescu told Czech Position. The order in which the work is shown marks Barladeanu’s progression. It begins with a few portraits from the late 1970s, including a self-portrait. It then moves on to several colored drawings done in a kind of comic style, which Popescu describes as “kind of grotesque, Fellini-like.”

Of his first collage, Popescu points out Barladeanu’s oft-repeated images of hats. From there, he remarks on Barladeanu’s consistent refinement of his collages, how the compositions became more complicated and how he eventually moved away from drawing in his own backgrounds to the compositions being made entirely from cut up magazines. On Barladeanu’s use of Romania’s unique brand of humor, Popescu says: “It’s sometimes over the top, with no taboos.” He had fairly advanced design skills for communist times, the curator says, and an abundance of “basically [everything] what was lacking” alongside symbols of the West: “women, cigars, booze.” ‘It’s sometimes over the top, with no taboos.’

Describing Barladeanu’s art as a kind of Pop Art with Dadaism — “a touch of Surrealism and a hint of communist gulag” — Popescu says his art was kind of risky. “It wasn’t for that time; his pop style should only be in an open, free society,” comments Popescu. “His art expressed his dream of freedom with a focus on Western brands, celebrities and planes — his dream of flying away.”

It was after 1989, between the years 1991-1996 that Barladeanu became more overtly political in his work. Images of Ceausescu are scattered throughout his work during this time period. There is even one piece with an image of communist leader and president of Czechslovakia Gustav Husak. Popescu points out the image of a sign reading, “re-elect nobody” commenting on its sense despite Barladeanu understanding no English.

He relates this back to two other images he pointed out in earlier works–a Campbell’s soup can (as in Warhol’s use of a Campbell’s soup can, of which Barladeanu did not know of, Popescu asked him) and an image from 1983 of a high rise with a plane flying directly toward it. “You get mystical,” says Popescu. “An artist should put himself in a position to receive something.”

Of Barladeanu’s most recent pieces, those he has created since his discovery, Popescu remarks that they are glossier and points out themes of religion, advertising and erotica. Featured celebrities include Jim Carrey and Brad Pitt, amongst others. With his own unique sense of humor and his obvious pleasure in his newfound fame, Barladeanu repeats a comment he said to American actress Angelina Jolie when he met her person in Paris, “I am the biggest director ever.” He continues, “I am doing worldwide cinema and using whoever I please at the time as actors.”

As for how Barladeanu is living his life post-discovery, Popescu says that he hasn’t changed his way of living. “He just changed his context.” From the description Popescu gave of Barladeanu’s two bedroom basement apartment, it seems to bare a resemblance to his collages, with found objects everywhere including a collection of hats. “He lives off his fame [not monetarily speaking, but personally], everyone knows him. He went from zero to hero.” In his own words, “I was an artist even before, I just wasn’t known,” says Barladeanu. “The only thing that has changed is that now I am known. I like it.”

Ion Barladeanu: Art Against All Odds
Through May 26
Czech Centre Prague
Rytířská 539/31

— Joann Plockova is a Prague-based freelance journalist

Slice of Life

Guest Writer — Thu, 03 May 2012 16:49:19 +0000

Everyone has their dream city. For Jan Lukas it was New York, and when he escaped there with his family in 1966, the city proved to be as magical as he had hoped. A selection of his photos from his time in the city is now on display at Leica Gallery.

“My father loved New York very much; even before we needed to leave,” Jan’s daughter, Helena Lukas Martemucci, who assisted in setting up the exhibition, told Czech Position. “When communism took over he wanted to leave and thought we would go to Germany. He and I visited New York in 1964, and he fell in love and decided if we could escape we would go to New York.”

Lukas, born in 1915, was a freelance photographer in Czechoslovakia mainly known for his documentary work. His love of the medium though led him to photograph nearly everything from portraits to landscapes to reportage.

He contributed to a variety of European publications and documented a number of important events in Czechoslovak history, including President Edvard Beneš at the time of the Munich Agreement; the Nazi occupation; the rise of communism and the oppression of the 50s. Many of the photographs from this time were compiled in a book, Prague Diary 1938-1965. Not published until 1995, it was this book that brought Lukas to the attention of curator Jan Mlčoch.

“Prague Diary 1938-1965 demonstrated the mood of the country, there are no drastic pictures, some are even humorous, but in a sad way,” Mlčoch told Czech Position. “But he couldn’t show at the time the pictures taken of the Nazi occupation or communist takeover.” Another book, Italian Diary 1965-1966, details the life of the Lukas family as they lived for 10 months in an Italian refugee camp after fleeing Czechoslovakia. These two books gave Mlčoch the idea to continue on the diary theme and display a small portion of Lukas’ work from New York.

Chronicler of memories

“I wanted to recapture his whole life work in these diaries of sort,” he said. “What’s been done so far is a narrow compilation, he has other work that didn’t fit and that still waits to be explored.”

Mrs. Lukas said it was quite painful to narrow down the choices to show; saying the pair started with 80 photos and narrowed it down to the 35 now hanging in Leica Gallery.

“He [Mr. Mlčoch] would win on one, I would win on another,” she said. “We’d play together with the compositions, color, scenes; yes this looks good.” She adds the exhibition is divided into two parts.

“The first is New York “proper,” and these are mainly color,” she said. “The second part is black and white photos of Czech society and friends in New York who left before or after the war or in 1968.”

Mlčoch wanted to emphasize Lukas’ color work because his black and white photos are more well-known, especially locally. Mrs. Lukas says her father didn’t like working in color because he couldn’t print it himself. Much of his work is preserved on slides as that’s how photo agencies at that time requested work. Mlčoch was also insistent on showing the photos taken of Czech society in New York, saying the Czechs know these people’s names, but often not their faces, and now many of them are dead.

“After my father died five years ago, I started pulling these slides out of boxes,” Mrs. Lukas said. “The black and white ones I know so intimately, I was there or in them, they are vivid memories for me. The color ones were a surprise though, I wasn’t walking with him when they were taken so they were a discovery after the fact.”

Delight in every corner

The fact that Lukas didn’t like working in color comes as a surprise when you see how vibrant these photos are. Even ones that aren’t necessarily “colorful” seem bright and alive. Most were taken on the streets of Manhattan in the ‘70s and ‘80s and are labeled as such, with only the street or neighborhood name and the decade.

Mrs. Lukas said her father loved to walk the streets taking photos and he captured the city in a glimmering, but natural way.

He depicted everyday people and their jobs: two firefighters, looking a bit dirty, share a laugh as they stand on the back of their truck; a woman, with a big blonde bouffant, sits in a Coney Island ticket booth with a cigarette in one hand and a telephone pressed to her ear in the other. On a street in East Harlem, kids play baseball on the sidewalk; while in Central Park roller skaters are happily captured enjoying what appears to be a hot summer day.

This was life and Lukas managed to find spots of color all over a grey city. In what appears to be a garbage strewn inner courtyard of an apartment building, a beat-up car missing a door and its tires sits abandoned. The building could even be abandoned itself, some windows are boarded up, others appear missing. But as your eyes move upward, laundry is gaily strung on two clotheslines strung between the upper windows.

His black and white pictures show more intimate moments – parties and other gatherings in people’s homes. Plates of food sit on a coffee table, people are on the couch, chairs, floor, chatting; it’s a typical evening at home in the 70s. There’s one of Václav Havel in Central Park in 1968 in which he appears to be checking out the legs of the women to the side of the photo and another of him addressing the US Congress in 1990, one of the newest photos on exhibit here.

Mrs. Lukas is curious about the reaction the photos will get as his color work may be a bit of a surprise to those more familiar with his black and white photos.

“My point of view is that it is wonderful and New York deserves to be shown in color,” she said. “They are cheerful, even the ones that aren’t. They show life at its best, not luxury, but joy in most of them and that’s how my father saw New York and his life.”

Jan Lukas: New York Diary 1966–1990
May 4 to June 17, 2012
Leica Gallery
Školská 28, Prague 1
www.lgp.cz

— Jacy Meyer is a Prague-based freelance journalist

Prague Photo shows growing range of Czech photography

Michael Stein — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 12:33:16 +0000

The fifth Prague Photo exhibition has taken its place in the center of the city’s contemporary art world with its move to the Dox Centre for Contemporary Art. Prague Photo executive director Iva Nesvadbová says that besides the new location the show has a growing international profile and, for the first time, international participation.

The most significant change the exhibition has undergone is the change of venue. While the central location of Mánes brought random passersby to see the show, the new space is even more suited to exhibiting photography, with the industrial architecture of the contemporary art museum replacing the functionalism of the former venue to powerful effect.

“It’s a good change. Photography really fits here,” Nesvadbová told Czech Position. “As always though it’s a very high level of photography.”

Besides the initial comprehensive exhibition at Dox the Prague Photo Festival continues throughout the month and beyond at 15 different venues all over the city. Long-term exhibitions that are already underway include a Jan Reich retrospective at Prague Castle, an exhibition of the work of Bernd and Hilla Becher at the Rudolfinum as well as of Jaroslav Fišer at Galerie AzeReT. Also underway is National Awakening by Salim Issa and Štěpánka Stein at Josef Sudek Studio (Ateliér Josefa Sudka). The show recreates mythic and iconic images from Czech culture with Vietnamese models, offering an ironic twist on conventional nationalist myths and showing the vast distance between 21^st and 19^th century life here.

Exhibitions opening over the coming weeks include, among others, the photography of Bohdan Holomíček, Image Source by the Dutch img_src collective, a Czech-Italian historical photography exhibition titled Boemia Mia at Prague’s Italian Cultural Institute and a Czech émigré documenting his newfound New York home at Leica Gallery Prague.

Czech classics

There are 25 galleries taking part in Prague Photo at Dox, with a strong emphasis on the work of renowned artists such as Josef Sudek,František Drtikol and Jaroslav Rössler. PPF Art is exhibiting its new acquisition of 15 photographs of Miroslav Hák, whose work is not as broadly known internationally as some of his compatriots but is another excellent example of the classic era of Czech photography.

Another internationally less well-known photographer whose work is exhibited in an extremely evocative manner is Václav Chochola. By mixing in Chochola’s portraits of famous figures such as Louis Armstrong and Salvador Dalí with music, film and selections of old photos from sources such as the Soviet Press Agency, which for only Kč 20 each can be purchased so visitors can bring a piece of the black-and-white communist past home with them.

Next generation

Prague Photo has also expanded its range of young photographers, with the total number of photography schools participating in the show increasing to seven. The student work takes up the upper floor of the exhibition space and displays a tremendous variety and high level of work.

The new work of many of the same Czech and international students of the Film And TV School Of Academy Of Performing Arts In Prague (FAMU) that exhibited at Prague Photo 2011 and Famufest is on display, as is work by photography students at the Institute of Creative Photography in Opava, some of whom have likewise appeared in major exhibitions in the capital over the past year.

Prague Photo goes international

A strong new addition to Prague Photo is Galerie Montanelli’s display of two German women photographers Stoll & Wachall, who combine figurative and abstract work in a series of photographs of arms and shoulders isolated against black backgrounds. “This is very interesting work because it’s something completely different to the Czech eye,” Nesvadbová said.

The gallery is also showing the work of Czech photographer Magdalena Bláhová, who gives a visual slant on the festival’s more international approach in a beautifully displayed set of pictures blending images of Prague and New York City. By concentrating on the seemingly interchangeable aspects of the two cities – Chinese restaurants, rundown buildings and street scenes – it takes a close look to be able to determine which city many of the photographs show.

For the first time a foreign gallery is exhibiting. Le Lac Gelé is a photography gallery from Nîmes, France and are exhibiting the work of five different photographers. “We are having a roundtable discussion with the French gallery because they have asked us to organize a presentation of young Czech photographers next year in Nîmes.”

Young Czech photographers will have another international presentation much sooner, with Prague Photo in Brussels starting May 4 through the end of the month at the Belgian capital’s Gallery of the Prague House. “We are taking a whole collection of different exhibitors there,” Nesvadbová said.

According to Nesvadbová international interest in Czech photography and Prague Photo in particular is showing concrete signs of growth. “I just spoke with someone from a very good Berlin gallery who wants to participate in the exhibition next year.”

Prague Photo
Through April 29
Dox Centre for Contemporary Art
Poupětova 1, Prague 7
www.doxprague.org
http://www.praguefoto.cz/ (scroll down for English and full list of 15 accompanying exhibitions)

Heavy metal: Čestmír Suška transforms scrap tanks into gigantic, patterned sculptures

Guest Writer — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 11:18:05 +0000

The Czech artist Čestmír Suška is known for creating magnificent sculptures by painstakingly cutting delicate patterns into abandoned metal industrial tanks. Now, as Suška contemplates a new direction, works in his “Rusty Flowers” series are on show for the final time at “Outside/Inside,” an exhibition at Prague’s DOX Centre for Contemporary Art.

Suška’s signature perforated and welded sculptures – including a massive lookout tower – have been installed on the terrace and in the yard at the gallery (“Outside”), while far smaller pieces are on display on three floors indoors (“Inside”).

The “Rusty Flowers” series (some of which were shown at Prague’s Tham Hall in 2007) began when the sculptor was invited to an artist residency at the Vermont Studio Center, one of several such stays that attest to his reputation in the U.S.

Suška, who attended Prague’s Academy of Fine Arts and was a founding member of the renowned Czech artistic group Tvrdohlaví (“Hard Heads”), has also taught in the States and received the prestigious Pollock-Krasner Foundation Fellowship there in 1995.

While in Vermont in 2005, the sculptor – then working primarily with wood – was strolling through a scrap yard when he chanced upon a hemispherical heating fluid tank common in America but rarely seen in Europe. He describes it as a life-changing moment.

Nocturnal mission

“I had a dream that I had to go back and get it – that it was meant for me!” the softly spoken Suška told Czech Position, adding that he was only in Vermont for two months and time was of the essence. “I had to learn how to weld in a matter of hours, and then gradually as I worked I learned the techniques that I needed.”

At first he stripped the original metal objects of paint, before coming to the conclusion that such an approach was misguided. “It was nonsensical – I was working with scrap and I shouldn’t try to rework it and somehow aestheticize it, by sanding it down for instance.”

The artist uses a plasma cutter to carve intricate patterns, sometimes inspired by the floral patterns found on curtains and lace table-cloths (the design seen in one piece at DOX was lifted from an overcoat), into industrial containers that once used to transport oil, gas, and beer.

In some cases the majority of the surface of the original objects is removed, so the sculptures appear almost frail, despite their enormous size and weight.

Suška, who incidentally also has experience as a theater designer, director, writer, and performer, is visibly tickled by a question as to whether he ever fears messing up a cut when one of his large pieces is close to completion.

“In metal everything can be corrected [laughs],” he says. “And anyway, there’s no such thing as a mistake. I take it as a process – not something I have to try to get an A in.”

Creating twins

The sections that have been cut out do not go to waste, as he recycles them into entirely new “twin” objects. The companion pieces being exhibited at DOX are spherical and were slowly and carefully welded together with the use of hemispherical “moulds.”

The sculptor actually lives and works by a scrap yard on the outskirts of Prague and walks by daily to peruse any new arrivals. Its staff also put aside pieces they think might tickle his fancy, while he also gets tip-offs from other people.

One example of the latter was when he got a call to say an oil tank at the small Bubovice airport near the capital was surplus to requirements. Suška transformed the container into the remarkable lookout tower now standing in the yard at DOX.

Visitors can climb a transparent spiral staircase inside the 10-meter structure – the sculptor’s biggest ever piece – and peer across the short distance to the terrace where most of the exhibition’s “Outside” part is on display.

Small relief

Such mammoth structures can take the artist up to two months to complete, and he says creating the relatively minute pieces comprising the “Inside” section allowed him to take something of a breather during the winter.

“I had been collecting small tanks for two or three years with the idea of eventually doing something with them – and at the start of this year I finally got around to it,” says Suška, adding that the “Inside” works could even be described as figurative.

The DOX exhibition is the last time that any pieces in the sculptor’s trademark “Rusty Flowers” series (numbering about three dozen in total) will be shown together, though some – like the lookout tower – may eventually find permanent homes as public art.

As for what the future holds, Suška, who is 60, claims to have no idea what he will do next. “Let’s leave it open,” he says.

“Inside” will run until 3 June 2012, while “Outside” will remain on show until 31 August 2012.

‘Outside/Inside’
DOX
Poupětova 1, Praha 7
http://dox.cz/en/

— Ian Willoughby is a Prague-based freelance journalist

De Sade and revolution at Prague psychiatric hospital

Michael Stein — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 05:52:01 +0000

As a play about asylum inmates putting on a play of the death of French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat, Weiss’ work already casts a kaleidoscopic glance at political conformity and extremism of two distinct eras of history. With the upcoming performances taking place in an abandoned space in Prague’s largest psychiatric hospital, a whole new chapter of modern history is added to the mix.

Marat/Sade is the abbreviated version of the play’s full title: The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade. Weiss used the historical fact that the infamous Marquis de Sade directed plays while an inmate at Charenton and was somewhat sympathetic to some aspects of the revolution (he was one of the prisoners freed when the Bastille was stormed) to reflect a crucial moment of the revolution through the prism of psychiatric patients in 1808, fifteen years after the revolution during the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte.

For Canadian artist and filmmaker Althea Thauberger, looking back at a revolution after a number of years have passed can be applied to the Czech experience 23 years after the Velvet Revolution as well. Thauberger is producing the play being done by Prague-based experimental theater group Akanda and its director Melanie Rada.

“Akanda’s take on Marat/Sade is different than the versions of the play I’ve seen. There is a lot more absurdity and a vacillation between emotional intensity and slapstick, at times even verging on camp,” Thauberger told Czech Position.

Thauberger’s previous work has similarly involved organizing artistic projects with groups or communities that are characterized by a certain isolation, as the patients and staff of the Bohnice hospital are. Previous projects have included a photographic series with female soldiers in Afghanistan, a performance with new mothers and their babies in Copenhagen and a photographic mural with members of a folk theater troupe in Indian-administered Kashmir.

Scenes from the bathhouse

As the play within Marat/Sade was set in Charenton’s bath house, it is appropriate that the current production is being performed in Bohnice’s former laundry (Prádelna Bohnice), which has become a space used for artistic endeavors. While the appearance of the space seems highly evocative of communist-era buildings that were left to fall apart due to lack of maintenance, Thauberger points out that the laundry was kept up until 1990, when privatization at the hospital consigned it to the dustbin of history.

Thauberger first became acquainted with the Akanda company and the Czech capital as a visiting professor at Prague’s Academy of Art. She wanted her students to do work in unconventional settings rather than in galleries and this led her to see the laundry space at Bohnice.

“The first time I saw it I said Marat/Sade needs to happen here,” she said. Just as she directed her students to work outside the obvious and conventional routes of the art world she is interested in taking works of art themselves into a different context.

“This production will be very different than if it were performed in a theater. It will bring a lot of different worlds together. It will draw people from my background in the world of contemporary art, also from the theater world and then the staff and patients of Bohnice.”

Peter Weiss of Czechoslovakia

Written in 1963, the play is obviously meant to reflect the complicated and traumatic 20^th century versions of political insanity. In fact, it is out of this particular insanity that the work has an even more far-reaching connection with Czech history.

Born in 1916 in Germany, Weiss was the son of a converted Hungarian Jew and so a citizen of Austria-Hungary. When the empire ceased to exist two years later he took on the citizenship of his father’s native town, which had since become part of Czechoslovakia. After Hitler’s rise to power, the 17-year-old Weiss was exempted from the obligatory Hitler salute at school as a Czechoslovak though he, still oblivious of his Jewish background, wanted to join in with his friends.

Eventually, the family’s Czechoslovak passports would come in handy when they escaped from Germany and settled in the Northern Bohemian town of Varnsdorf. This was the first time Weiss had ever been to what was technically his homeland. Weiss’ correspondence with the famous writer Herman Hesse helped him get a place as a student painter at Prague’s Art Academy until the Nazi takeover of the Sudetenland in 1938 caused the family to escape to Sweden, where Weiss would live the rest of his life.

Calling it ironic that one of Germany’s most famous writers and dramatists was never a German citizen doesn’t do justice to malign forces that prevented Weiss from living in the country he was born in.

Marat/Sade was first performed in West Berlin in 1964 and was launched to tremendous international acclaim the following year when director Peter Brook, who was celebrated in 2011’s Theatre World Brno, put on a London production of the play with the Royal Shakespeare Company starring acting legends such as Ian Richardson, Patrick Magee and Glenda Jackson. At the end of 1965 the production came to Broadway, where it ran for 145 performances. In 1967 Brook made a film of Marat/Sade with much of the same cast members.

The play continues to be the focus of political and artistic experimentation and controversy. A 2007 production at The Classical Theatre of Harlem boasted an all-male, all-black cast. The Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2011 revival accentuated the eroticism and horror of Weiss’ play and led to a backlash, with newspapers such as The Daily Mail characterizing the performance as “Utter filth and depravity.”

The current production will be primarily in English with Czech surtitles and Thauberger says that the language has proven to be difficult incorporating the Czech participants in the play.

“The play is very text-based but there is also a lot of physical acting, dancing and singing. There is a lot of emotion and satire, so it has been a challenge.”

Marat/Sade at Prádelna Bohnice
Through April 28, 7:30 pm
April 29, 4:00 pm
Tickets: Kč 150/100
Directions: Metro line C (red) Kobylisy, bus 177 or 200 to Katovicka bus stop

The Prostitutes of Prague

Guest Writer — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 08:21:47 +0000

This Thursday night at Palác Akropolis, the Prague-based alternative band The Prostitutes launch their third album, Deaf to the Call, produced by Youth (Martin Glover), a founding member of and bassist for the 1980’s UK, post-punk band Killing Joke who has since become a world-renowned producer.

On the scene since 2004, The Prostitutes became something of a phenomenon, quickly attracting a strong local following as well as an international one via their presence on the web through social networking sites like MySpace. The band’s first album Get Met Out of Here (2006) and follow-up Hometown Zombies, produced in 2009 by one of the Czech Republic’s top producers, Dušan Neuwerth, were well received; The Prostitutes have won a host of awards and nominations — including for Band of the Year by Filter magazine, Song of the Year for their track “Sunshine” and a nomination for an Anděl award (the Czech Grammy) for Best New Act in 2006.

The band’s current line-up consists of Martin Destroyer (Martin Přikryl) on guitar, Luke Santiago (Lukáš Přikryl) on drums, Stevie LFO (Martin Převrátil) on keyboard, and Adam Piaf on bass guitar (Piaf replaced Šmity who replaced the band’s original bassist Mark Jukebox or Marek Dziuba) and lead singer Adrian T. Bell — the band’s only non-Czech member, who hails from the UK, and granted Czech Position an interview ahead of the Akropolis gig.

Q: How did The Prostitutes come to be formed in 2004?

BELL:Martin Přikryl [Martin Destroyer] and I were working together in advertising [Bell, a former sailor in the navy and a painter, has been working as a freelance art director since he came to the Czech Republic in 1992. Přikryl, a permanent fixture in the advertising industry, currently runs a Slovak advertising agency in Prague and is also a director for advertising commercials].

Martin had a band called The Radios — along with Luke Santiago and Stevie LFO — and they needed a new singer. One day he asked me to come along to a jam session in the evening [where] he introduced me as the new singer. I was like, wait a minute, I thought I was only here for a jam session! [he laughs].

© YouTube — The Prostitutes ‘Everybody Knows’

Q: Had you ever been in a band before? Did you have any singing experience? Your voice is such a defining characteristic of the band.

No, I didn’t [laughs].

Q: How do The Prostitutes describe The Prostitutes?

BELL:Well, we’ve said [about ourselves] we party on the grave of the ‘80s. This is still quite true; we have a similar sound — a sound based around guitar music, nothing too experimental or conceptual. We want to make good sounds. The word “punk” often comes up to describe us. We are almost punk, but not punk [laughs]. Energy — we like to put a lot of energy into sound. ‘The word “punk” often comes up to describe us. We are almost punk, but not punk. Energy — we like to put a lot of energy into sound.’

Q: You’ve been compared to Joy Division. Does this ring true?

BELL:I think it’s my voice — the bass-baritone thing. Musically, we’re not really connected to Joy Division. We have the early ‘80s connection. We’re from that era. But, I’d say what we’re playing is today.

Q: You write all the lyrics [sung in English]; where do they come from?

BELL:It always comes from a personal place, but it doesn’t always have to be about you. There always has to be something in there that has to be believable. [In regard to the process] Sometimes it happens that I find myself writing things I never started.

Q: Let’s talk about the new album Deaf to the Call. How did the collaboration with Youth come about?

BELL:We wanted a new producer for our next album. We thought, we’ve done the Czech market, we’ve worked with the best producer on the Czech market, Dušan Neuwerth, and it was great, but we wanted to try something else.

Then, Martin, who is often biting off more than he can chew [laughs], said he contacted Youth. We were like “you did?!” Actually, at the beginning, Youth thought we were a girl band [laughs].

We were originally supposed to go to Granada to record, but we couldn’t raise the funds. So we decided to invite him here. We decided to work at the Faust studio because they have good equipment, good mics and so on. Youth looked at the studio and agreed to work there. He then came about one month before and watched us perform. It was a gig at Roxy. It was probably the worst gig we did in years. But Youth said he liked our energy. He really liked our drummer, Luke. He called us up after returning to the UK, and we decided on a March recording.

Q: Tell me about the experience of making the album and working with Youth?

BELL:We first had two days of pre-production in which we played him all of our songs. We then spent nine days recording, from nine in the morning each day until about one or two in the morning. Youth has very high standards. He worked us really hard. I call him a “catalystic” producer. To push us, he’d say things like “Adrian, you’ve got a Porsche, but you’re driving it like a go-cart.” [laughs]. ‘Youth has very high standards. He worked us really hard. I call him a “catalystic” producer.’

He has a huge knowledge of music. He has produced hundreds of albums for bands like The Verve, Primal Scream and so on. He works on like 40 or 50 projects at a time; I’ve never met someone with so much energy. He often is painting when he is working in the studio. Recently, Killing Joke was touring again, and I asked him if he was painting then. He said, “No, I made an album.” [laughs]

He really pushed us to another level. It was like going through hell for a week, but at the end of the day we made a good album. We think we made a great album. We learned a hell of a lot about what we could do.

Q: How would you describe the new album?

BELL:It’s compact. We think all the songs are really good. The person that amazed me the most is Luke, our drummer. He went up about five levels. Our bass player [Adam Piaf] — he really wanted to try to push it. Me, I got a bit depressed through the week. Youth got on top of me a lot (Adrian mentioned that he asked him to rewrite songs. It was a type of pressure he wasn’t used to), but I feel an improvement. Now we have a better vision of what is expected.

Q: How is this third album different than the first two?

BELL:As I said, its compactness, its intensity. The song writing is better. It’s more of an album than just a collection of songs. Youth pushed us together more as a band; he made us a unit. The sound is world class. In comparison to how things often run in the Czech Republic, everything was set up in a couple of hours and all the instruments sounded right. The engineering standard was a lot higher. When listening to the final mix — the mastering — the level had gone up even more.

Q: Why did you choose Akropolis as the place to launch your new album?

BELL:It’s our favorite place to play. Akropolis is home. It’s got a good feeling.

Q: What changes have you seen in the band from its start in 2004 to today?

BELL:The energy that we captured in the first three or four rehearsals — we are always still trying to capture that, a kind of spontaneity. When you play the same songs over and over again, it’s hard to [stay fresh]. We tried to capture that energy in this album.

Q: Why do you think The Prostitutes had such a quick following? What’s the appeal?

BELL:I think they [the fans] see a band that’s trying. They see you’re not just taking a piss. You’re taking it seriously. You’re not insulting the audience. You’re not just doing a happy song to do a happy song. When people see that you’re really trying, they want to be part of that. Or maybe they just like the music [laughs]. We’ve had people who keep returning, people who come to every gig. We’ve befriended these people. ‘[The fans] see you’re not just taking a piss. You’re taking it seriously. You’re not insulting the audience.’

Q: You’ve played in Spain, Germany, Slovakia and Austria, for example. Is there anywhere else in particular you’d really like to play?

BELL:Recently I started thinking I’d like to play in Norway. The clubs are supposed to be good there and they pay well. I wouldn’t mind a Northern tour. But if people like the music it doesn’t matter where you play. We’re just happy to get a good reaction from the crowd. When this happens, you feel like it’s worth all the travel and so on.

Q: Has there ever been a time when The Prostitutes have almost met their end?

BELL:All the time [laughs]. Every week we have a conflict. Somebody throws a fit. You have to be quite a Buddhist in your approach to people. But, it’s quite difficult when you’re not a Buddhist [laughs].

Q: What’s next for The Prostitutes?

BELL:We’ll see what happens with this album. If it gets a good reaction, if we make some money, we would like to make another album. I wouldn’t mind doing a ‘best-of’ album. And all bands want to break into some market that they haven’t broken into before. The charts in the UK — that would be good [laughs]. [In general] You don’t do so much to be popular. You do want you can to make something you think is good and then it’s the will of god or the marketing people [laughs].

The Prostitutes
Palác Akropolis
Kubelíkova 27, Prague 3
Thursday (April 26) at 19:30

— Joann Plockova is a Prague-based freelance journalist

AniFest spotlights stop-motion puppetry, world’s best animated films

Raymond Johnston — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 10:29:43 +0000

Big-budget computer animated features from major studios have been almost guaranteed success at the box office. And while they are what many people now think of when the word “animation” is bandied about, a lot more falls under that rubric.

A festival in North Bohemia will present a broad overview of what else has been going on, from shorts lasting a minute up through full-length features, with an emphasis this year on stop-motion puppetry.

The main venue will be the spa town of Teplice. New for this year, some events will take place in nearby Duchcov. “The expansion to Duchcov came very naturally. The festival is growing bigger every year and Duchcov is a charming little town just a few kilometers from Teplice,” festival PR manager Marie Heřmanová told Czech Position.

Screenings, an exhibition and a video installation will be at the chateau, zámek Duchcov — the same one where Casanova lived for 13 years. “The Duchcov chateau is an extraordinary place, so we are particularly happy about this cooperation, and we hope it will become a tradition,” Heřmanová said. Additional screenings will be at Duchcov’s Kino Lipa.

One main element this year is a retrospective on the work of Czech animator Jiří Trnka, who would have been 100 years old. This helped to put an emphasis on puppet animation, and many of the festival’s key guests worked in that field. The puppetry idea extends to the promotional trailer for the festival, made by Matyáš Trnka, the grandson of Jiří. The short segment uses the likenesses of 17 famous puppets.

Puppet-based animation is still strong, according to festival program director Pavel Horáček. “Current puppet animation is showing unprecedented resistance to three-dimensional computer animation. Many people predicted the end of puppet animation, but the last decade has shown this is not the case,” he said.

The British are coming

The honorary president of the festival is British animator Barry Purves,whose work has received Oscar and BAFTA nominations in addition to winning other awards. “Among contemporary independent puppet animation authors, Barry Purves is maybe the most outstanding one — and he’s also one of the very few who can stand a comparison with Jiří Trnka. Along with Trnka, he’s able to make a puppet adaption of a very serious topic and balance sentiment with pathos,” Heřmanová said.

His choice as honorary president also fits in with the festival’s focus on British stop-motion animation using puppets. “Britain is a sort of puppet superpower,” she said, citing British studio Aardman Animations as well as artists like Suzie Templeton. “So, Barry Purves was just the best choice, and we are proud that he accepted.” The new stop-motion film from Aardman Animations, “The Pirates! Band of Misfits,” will open the festival.

Purves has made his own short films as well as dozens of commercials and other segments using stop-motion puppetry techniques. He will present a retrospective of his works, including his debut “Next,” which jams all of Shakespeare’s plays into five minutes with the Bard himself on stage. The program also includes “Achilles” and “Rigoletto,” two atypical versions of well-known tales.

Teacher and curator Paul Wells will present a history of British stop-motion animation from 1908 up to present times. The retrospective look will begin with “The Dreams of Toyland,” a primitive mix of live action and animation, and move on through animated product advertisements including one by George Pal to modern shorts by contemporary animators like Templeton and Paul Bush.

Another festival guest will discuss US-based studio Laika, which released “Coraline” in 2009 and is putting the finishing touches on “ParaNorman,” its second feature. Studio representative Mark Shapiro will show clips that explain how those films were made, along with the 2005 short “Moongirl,” the studio’s first computer animated effort directed by Henry Selick.

Up for judgment

The festival has three juries and will award more than a dozen prizes. Winners get a ceramic stork, which is the festival’s symbol, as well as a cash prize ranging from €200 to €1,000, depending on the category. Films using all types of techniques — from traditional cell to computer animation — are among the entries.

A big name among the jury members is Will Vinton, who will help judge feature length and short films. “We invited Will because of his work with clay animation. He invented Claymation and using this technique he created ‘Closed Mondays’ which won an Oscar,” Heřmanová said. Vinton even trademarked the name Claymation to protect his close association with the style. “He will show a retrospective of his [short] films and explain the principles of Claymation,” Heřmanová added. His ambitious 1986 feature “The Adventures of Mark Twain” is also scheduled.

Highly anticipated films in the feature competition include “A Letter to Momo,” a Japanese film that took seven years to complete because it uses highly detailed hand drawings. The film opened the 2011 Toronto Film Festival since then won the Grand Prize for a feature at the New York International Children’s Film Festival. The film has just been released in Japan to generally positive reviews.

The story follows a young woman who moves from Tokyo to a remote area where strange noises and events pique her curiosity. She investigates to find the source of the troubles as well as to find the meaning behind a two-word letter that her recently deceased father left for her.

The French film “A Cat in Paris” has a style that has been compared to the openings of the Pink Panther films and its story has a distinct Hitchcock flavor — a cat lives a double life of being a pet by day and cat burglar by night. It had a surprise Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature, losing to “Rango.” Heřmanová cited “A Cat in Paris” as one her favorites in the festival. “ It has great atmosphere and it’s very French,” she said.

Other entries in the feature competition include the Polish-Romanian co-production “Crulic — the Path to Beyond,” which is based on the true story of prisoner who went on a hunger strike; a Hungarian film about the Biblical figure Adam called “The Tragedy of Man”; and “Dead But Not Buried,” the second part of a British trilogy about a (dead) man who may possess important secrets.

The short film competition by its nature has too many entries to begin to summarize them. Some 1,600 entries from 66 countries have been narrowed down to five blocks of film that run about an hour and 20 minutes each, with about 10 film in each block. There are three prizes, based on length. Two Oscar-nominated shorts are in competition: “A Morning Stroll” by Grant Orchard and Sue Goffe, and “Wold Life” by Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby.

A few notable names from the world of animation also have entries. Bill Plympton’s rather brief “Summer Bummer” shows a man’s imagination run wild as he prepares to jump into a pool. Japanese animator Koji Yamamura’s “Muybridge’s Strings” takes inspiration from a pioneering photographer. Dutch-Canadian animator Paul Driessen offers a revised and irreverent take on the ancient Greek tale “Oedipus.”

A three-member jury with panelists from Syria, Estonia and Ireland will decide on student, commercial, television and video animation. The competition for TV films and series has a notable Czech entry. “Pat and Mat in the Country: Dishes made of Paper” is the latest episode in a series that began in 1976. The two heroes are handymen who take a somewhat whimsical approach to resolving situations. This new entry was directed by Marek Beneš, the son of the series‘ creator, Lubomír Beneš.

Another three-member jury will evaluate non-narrative and experimental film, which is a new competitive section for this year. In the past, these films were mixed in with the rest of the short films.

“These works do not follow the same objectives as movies with a story, and the selection committee uses a different criteria for evaluating them compared to narrative animation,” program director Horáček said. “Non-narrative films have been in the competitions at Anifest but hardly ever win. … Therefore, Anifest has created a space that will be fair for these images and where they will be seen in their relative context.” Some 14 films will compete in this section.

Heřmanová said she is also looking forward to this new section. “[File sharing sites] YouTube and Vimeo are full of short experimental films, but this is curated selection on a big screen, which puts all the screened works in a very different light,” she said.

Topics out of competition

France has building a reputation recently for highly artistic animation. Aside from an entry in the feature competition, two more features are scheduled. Michel Ocelot’s computer animated omnibus film “Tales of the Night” premiered at the 61^st Berlin International Film Festival.

The film has five segments from the series “Dragons and Princesses” together with a new story, all done in a cut-out silhouette style and held together with some framing sequences. “[It is] an absolutely stunning film, really magical fairy-tale,” Heřmanová said.

Ocelot shot to international fame with his film “Kirikou and the Sorceress,” based on African motifs. He is scheduled to attend the festival.

Another entry from the land with 246 types of cheese is “The Painting,” a new work from animator Jean-François Laguionie, who was a mentor of Michel Ocelot. Laguionie’s feature blends animation with live action to show some figures from an unfinished painting looking for the artist.

The festival has also been exploring films from the Baltic States, with the sections in previous festivals on Latvia and Lithuania. This year wraps up the three-year investigation with the documentary “Kings of Time,” feature film “Frank and Wendy” and two sets of short films from Estonia. Animator and author Ülo Pikkov will help to put it all in perspective.

Anifest is an international festival with guests from all around the world, so 99 percent of the festival program is English friendly, according to Heřmanová. “Where English isn’t the original language, we screen the films with English subtitles. There are only few screenings and workshops, mostly for children, which are held only in Czech,” she said.

11^th Anifest
April 26–May 1
Teplice and Duchcov, North Bohemia
Accreditation ranges from Kč 200 for one day to Kč 600 for six days; with discounts for students, seniors and some club members
Individual tickets: Kč 65
Some children’s programs and screenings in Duchcov are free
www.anifest.cz

Mature decorations

Guest Writer — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 11:17:25 +0000

Prague’s Antique Fair can be considered an exhibition or a shopping extravaganza depending on your mood and budget. Sponsored by the Czech Association of Antique Dealers, the fair runs April 26-29 at Novoměstská radnice and is a great opportunity to meet Czech antique dealers, learn more about antiques, and perhaps purchase something new. Well, new to you.

Held twice a year, this addition will feature about 60 exhibitors from across the Czech Republic and organizers expect between 7,000 and 10,000 visitors over the four-day run.

“In one location there are 60 shops and auctions houses and visitors can see the most antiques in one place,” Lucie Šustková, manager of the Antique Fair, told Czech Position. “People who are coming are friends of antiques, art collectors, people who are interested in saving money on nice antique pieces and also other antique dealers from the Czech Republic and other countries.”

Each year organizers choose a theme for the Fair, and this year it’s the 19^th century. Czech Association of Antique Dealers president Simona Šustková said the Fair’s exhibitions will show artifacts inspired by the art of the French court of Napoleon Bonaparte as well as antiques from typical bourgeois interiors of the time. This so-called Napoleonic classicism is considered the last phase of the classical style better known as Empire. It features perfect symmetry, efficiency, austerity, straight and slim lines.

Empire, Biedermeier styles, and more

Šustková, who also owns Alma Antiques in Prague 1, says her shop will be bringing items from the 19^th century, plus additional pieces. “We will bring to the Fair some jewelry, glass, porcelain and also textiles,” she told Czech Position. “Our shop specialization is wide; we have jewelry, glass, toys, porcelain, furniture, but what is special are our textiles — old handmade tablecloths, bed sheets and antique clothes.”

Even with a theme, the variety on display will be impressive with each shop putting out the best of what they have to offer. Miroslav Matějka, owner of Bušidó, for example will be bringing typical original Asian art, Japanese samurai swords, pottery, wooden blocks, old prints and hanging scrolls. He says the Fair is a great chance to meet people with an interest in antiques.

“We meet here a lot of different kinds of people with an interest in old art,” he told Czech Position. “The Fair is a good chance to see a lot of nice antique items in one place.”

Simona Šustková said Alma Antiques has been participating in the Fair for 15 years and consistently sees good business.

“What is important here is that you can find the best quality of all antique businesses and also the visitors are really good buyers,” she said. “Plus, it is really a good idea to invest in antique goods, the prices are low and for sure they are going to grow in the coming years.”

Something old and…something old

Authenticity is a big concern when it comes to buying antiques. The Antique Fair takes the worry out of purchasing with a special committee designated to monitor all items put on display.

“Here, you have a large number of dealers ‘under one roof’ from all over the country,” Petra Young, partner and auctioneer with Antiques Art Auctions and VP of International Relations for the Czech Association of Antique Dealers told Czech Position. “The vetting committee checks all the exhibits prior to the opening of the Fair and they have a right to veto any item where the origin is in doubt.”

Antiques Art Auctions has shops in Prague, Brno and Ostrava. They exhibit and sell a full range of art and antiques; however, Young says they are best known for their extensive collection of paintings, especially Czech from the first half of the 20th century.

“We will be bringing a wide range of paintings representing the different schools of Czech painters, as well as a number of other objects,” she said. “One of our most interesting and valuable exhibits will be the ‘Baby Jesus of Prague,’ a small wooden figure from around 1660-1710, an excellent example of so-called Cuzco Baroque.”

Šustková said the Antique Fair was originally started to make the antique business more public as well as create an opportunity for antique dealers from across the country to meet and talk shop. In addition to organizing the Fairs, the Association also runs the Rudolfinska akademie; a two year retraining program in the area of antiques, history, history of art and conservation.

While it is perfectly acceptable to attend the Fair to simply soak up the antique atmosphere, the items on display are for sale, so if you are in a mind to buy, it’s best you hit the Fair early to ensure the widest possible array of goods are still available. “Generally, exhibitors save the best pieces for the Fair,” Young said. “Buyers have a chance to see a number of excellent antiques and art in one place.”

Antique Fair
April 26-29
Novoměstská radnice, Karlovo náměstí 1
Entrance: Kč 90
www.asociace.com

— Jacy Meyer is a Prague-based freelance journalist

Finále Plzeň celebrates 25 years, focuses on Poland

Guest Writer — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 11:06:56 +0000

A film festival featuring mainly Czech cinematography, both contemporary and classics from various eras, is celebrating its 25th anniversary by showcasing some 170 films in seven days and an especially rich accompanying program.

Apart from the traditional sections, the festival in Plzeň, West Bohemia, known for short as Finále (an abbreviation from FIlmy NAšich Let, or Films of Our Age) this year introduces a new section, ZOOM, to focus on what neighboring countries have been cooking up in their pots of cinema art.

“After last year’s festival, and also since Plzeň has been selected as the [European Capital of Culture 2015], we have decided to add a bit of an international touch,” festival director Ivan Jáchim told Czech Position.

This year, that special section’s focus is on Poland. “There were several reasons why we chose Poland: first, Czech films are well known and respected in Poland but not vice versa; second, we’d like to use the opportunity to share the artists’ experience during workshops focused on cinematography legislature in Poland, what benefits it brought the artists and what we should be cautious about,” Jáchim said. “We would also like to talk about regional funds to support cinematography, which are already working in Poland and are in the preparation stages here.” ‘Czech films are well known and respected in Poland but not vice versa.’

From the eight films that will be screened in the ZOOM section, two are restored jewels. These films, however, have not been chosen randomly. “We chose two restored films by Janusz Majewski because many Czech actors and artists participated in making them.”

The first film, “Pacific Hotel” (Dvojí svět hotelu Pacifik/Zaklęte rewiry), which portrays the dark side of life at luxury hotel during the 1930s, was shot at Prague’s Municipal House. It stars the well-known Czech actor Roman Skamene in leading role and was shot by Miroslav Ondříček, the Academy-Award nominated cinematographer of Miloš Forman’s films “Ragtime” and “Amadeus.” The second film Jáchim recommends, “The Brand of Cain” (Kainovo znamení/Czarny wąwóz), a spy-film set in 1866 during the Austro-Prussian War, was chosen because it’s based on a screenplay by the Czech writer Vladimír Körner.

Other films in this section include examples of contemporary Polish cinema, such as Greg Zglinski’s award-winning study of morality and heroism “Courage” (Wymyk) and the Oscar-nominee Bartosz Konopka’s visually stunning psychology drama “Fear of Falling” (Lęk wysokości).

Another film worth seeing from this section is Krzysztof Zanussi’s “Camouflage” (Barwy ochronne), a 1976 psychology drama from a linguistic summer camp. Zanussi is not only a guest at the festival, he is on the international jury, which will choose the best Czech feature film to receive the Golden Kingfisher (Zlatý ledňáček) award.

The jurors will not have it easy this year since the main competition of feature-length films includes such masterpieces as Zdeněk Jiráský’s “Flower Buds” (Poupata), this year’s Golden Lion winner portraying a dissolution of gambler’s family; Olmo Omerzu’s “A Night Too Young”, the only Czech film presented at Berlinale this year; Robert Sedláček’s “Long Live the Family” (Rodina je základ státu), a family road-movie contemplating morality and crime in Czech lands; and Martin Šulík’s “Gypsy” (Cigán), a young boy’s change of life set in eastern Slovakia.

“Gypsy,” which premiered at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival last year, won praise from critics and took homethe Special Jury Award, while the lead actor Ján Mižigár won a Special Mention.

Finále will devote this year’s tribute section to the director Martin Šulík and showcase his early and most acclaimed work. “Šulík is not a grumbling artist, but a working one. He doesn’t avoid utilitarian contracts to be able to develop his original work. The origin behind his work is an effortless altruism not only when it comes to his own work but also in his approach to the history of cinema and its future,” said Jan Lukeš, the festival’s dramaturgist.

Apart from the competing film “Gypsy,” five of his previous films will be showcased as a tribute to this extraordinary director of contemporary Slovak cinema including: “Tenderness” (Neha) one of the director’s first films; “Everything I Like” (Všetko, čo mám rád), about a man’s mid-life crisis; and his award-winning “Garden” (Zahrada), a poetic back-to-the-roots tale.

Apart from feature films, documentaries also compete for the best film since 2003. Apart from the winner of the Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival and the Golden Lion-winner “Solar Eclipse” by Martin Mareček, a witty portrayal of two electricians’ struggle to help electrify Zambia’s poor town, there is also Czech public television’s collaborate work of 24 Czech directors (called “24”), and provocative directorMartin Dušek’s latest, “Mein Folk Costume,” in which he questions the traditions of a Sudeten German association. Finally, there is Karel Vachek’s latest, “Obscurantist and His Lineage,” a 199 minute-long essay on mysteriologists’ lives.

To continue with last year’s family saga, the Trojan family will be in the spotlight this year. The well-known actor Ladislav Trojan and his two sons (Ivan, an award-winning actor, and Ondřej, a director and producer), will talk about their family and work with the audience throughout the week.

To celebrate the 80th birthdays of director Miloš Forman and costume designer Theodor Pištěk, the restored classic “Markéta Lazarová” will be shown as well as the director’s cut of Amadeus.

However, if all these films aren’t enough, Finále has a real treat for real aficionados and fans of the television series “Therapy” (Terapie), starring Karel Roden and shot by acclaimed Czech directors such as Petr Zelenka, Marek Najbrt and Jaroslav Fuit (come and see what it is!).

Open air screenings also won’t be missing this year. Five films connecting the main theme of madness will be screened every day from 9:00pm at Kopeckého sady.

The rich accompanying program include book readings by Michal Viewegh, Tereza Boučková and Petr Šabach; exhibits celebrating the 25 years the festival took place that, due to a temporary shut-down during normalization stretched to 45 years, or daily concerts at Anděl Music Bar.

Finále Film Festival
April 22 – 28
Plzeň, Měšťanská beseda and other venues
(Most films have English subtitles)
www.festivalfinale.cz

— Hana Gomoláková is a Prague-based freelance journalist

Bruno Schulz’s ‘Treatise on Mannequins’

Michael Stein — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 08:21:52 +0000

The Treatise on Mannequins is a theater piece inspired by Bruno Schulz’s art and writing, using music, visual art and acting to transmit a “world beyond time and space” to the audience. Director Krzysztof Żyliński talked to Czech Position about putting Schulz’s unique sensibility on stage and of the multinational theater company which resembles Schulz’s own culturally mixed background.

The play’s title comes from one of the short stories in Schulz’s Cinnamon Shops (Sklepy Cinamonowe, also translated as The Street of Crocodiles). The full title is A Treatise on Mannequins, or The Next Book of Genesis.

“It can be understood as a treatise on a world where all of us are mere mannequins, mechanical, slave beings, or metaphorically as spiritually empty beings,” Żyliński said.

Żyliński stresses the importance of bringing your own point of view and emotions to bear on the complex and hard to assimilate words and images that poured out of the unassuming high school art teacher.

“Before you start to transfer Schulz to the stage, you need to understand him, you need to know what Schulz is about, understand his message, enter his world personally, individually, ‘live’ his works.”

Central European writer

Bruno Schulz is difficult to categorize. He was a writer, but also an artist. He was from the Polish city of Drohobycz, which today is Drohobych, Ukraine. Whether the city was Polish or Ukrainian he was a member of its former Jewish population and died with them during the Holocaust, the victim of a personal feud between rival Gestapo officers. And like a writer from the once Polish, highly Jewish and now Ukrainian town of Brody, Joseph Roth, could have opted to write in German. Instead, he wrote in Polish and associated with fellow avant-garde Polish writers Witold Gombrowicz and Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz.

When Schulz first read Kafka — another Central European Jewish writer who straddled the line between cultures and languages and whose fears and sense of inadequacy were turned into great art — it came as a revelation. There is considerable debate of the extent to which he helped his fiancée, Józefina Szelińska, translate The Trial into Polish.

This confusion of categories came to a head when a mural he painted in the children’s bedroom of Gestapo officer Felix Landau was rediscovered in 2001 and claims were made on it by Poland, Ukraine and Israel. After the dust cleared the mural ended up at Israel’s Yad Vashem on a “long-term loan” from Ukraine, with the question of Schulz’s provenance left unresolved.

Central European theater company

While this typically Central European blurring of borders is seen as a negative by lawyers and bureaucrats, it can also have a potent artistic effect, one evidenced not only by writers such as Schulz and Roth and Kafka but by Divadlo Kompánia itself.

With a Polish director, Hungarian actors, a Slovak artist among the other Hungarian artists and Polish and Hungarian musicians the company is a truly Central European phenomenon. The company has been working together for eight years and Żyliński says they are used to each other and have no language barriers preventing them from working toward a common artistic aim.

“As far as the cultural differences are concerned, it was definitely a very exciting encounter of three different cultures- — Polish-Jewish and Hungarian. After all, the scenic image of the performance born is the result of this meeting of three diverse cultures. And this is the strength and power of the performance, as well as the power of Schulz, as it proves his universality.”

From page to stage

Adapting literary masterpieces to the stage or screen is problematic to start with. When the adapting is being done by people with vastly different sensibilities, however talented, the end result often lacks even the remotest connection with the original on which it was based. Having witnessed a stage version of Kafka’s Metamorphosis in which the writhing of a man in a cockroach costume was more than equaled by the writhing of the bored and uncomfortable audience, I am skeptical of the possibility of transforming the work of certain writers into dramatic form.

Luckily, there are some notable exceptions. One of these happens to be another adaptation of Schulz’s writing by a Polish director in The Hourglass Sanatorium by Wojciech Has, a film recently rereleased on DVD.

Żyliński says he is very familiar with Has’s work and equates the surrealist sensibility of the filmmaker with Schulz’s own. “But in our work we did not study nor deal with Has’s work. We were primarily concentrating on Schulz’s writings and drawings. That was the core of our inspiration.”

There have been a number of theatrical adaptations based on Schulz’s work. Żyliński says that the first step of being able to bring Schulz to the stage is internalizing him and recognizing the fact that Schulz isn’t creating bizarre visions for their own sake but identifying that these often surreal and unexplored worlds exist within everybody.

“Schulz is very specific from the point of view of reception. First you have to get into his world, and live in it, before you start thinking about how to put him on stage,” he said. “Making a play is never about programming, it is not a technique, but a creation based on personal experience and feeling.”

After the company’s Prague appearance they will be taking the show to other Visegrád Four countries, with performances next month at the Festival of Theatres and Theatre Schools of the V4 Countries in Nitra, Slovakia followed by June performances in Budapest. In September they will bring the play back to its origins in Schulz’s birthplace of Drohobych, Ukraine (called Drohobycz when it was part of Poland) for the International Schulz Festival.

“It is his birthplace and the place where he lived all his life, and where all his characters come from. So, we are really looking forward to that.”

Schulz’s work will receive another platform in Prague later this year when Prague’s Czech Centre brings the highly successful Kafka & Schulz: Masters of the Borderlands in July and August. The exhibition originated in Stockholm through a cooperation of the local Jewish Museum, Czech Centre and the Polish Institute.

Kompánia (Hungary): Bruno Schulz -The Treatise on Mannequins
April 21 at 8:00 pm
NoD / No Dimension Venue
Dlouhá 33, Prague 1