Not only music, but also visual arts

Prague Spring presents Art Salon and works by contemporary Czech artists on the theme of Smetana’s cycle of symphonic poems My Country

This year’s Prague Spring Festival has introduced new features in its accompanying programme, one of which is the Prague Spring Art Salon project, which focuses on visual arts. Festival representatives and curators Jan Kudrna and Milan Dospěl approached six Czech contemporary visual artists who have created works inspired by Bedřich Smetana’s My Country, a cycle of symphonic poems that marks the 200th anniversary of his birth this year. Visitors to the festival will see them at concerts in Prague’s Municipal House and Rudolfinum from 12 May to 3 June. The unique collection will be auctioned at the 91st KODL Gallery auction on 26 May at the Žofín Palace and on Artslimit.com, with the proceeds being donated to the festival for its further development.

Milan Grygar, Petr Nikl, Ivan Pinkava, Jakub Roztočil, Ira Svobodová a Daniel Vlček. Six leading Czech artists representing different techniques, media and generations. But there was only one inspiration for their new works – the cycle of symphonic poems My Country by Bedřich Smetana. “This emblematic work marks the opening of the Prague Spring every year on 12 May and the opening of the Prague Spring Art Salon exhibition. The works will be exhibited at the festival concerts at the Rudolfinum and the Municipal House and auctioned at the end of May at the KODL Gallery, which is partner of the project. The proceeds of this benefit auction will be donated to the Prague Spring Festival for its further development. We believe that this will create a unique accompanying art programme for our festival and make it an annual tradition.” Pavel Trojan, director of Prague Spring, adds to the exhibition. He has invited two curators – Jan Kudrna and Milan Dospěl – to collaborate with him, thus connecting music and visual arts in the festival programme. Visitors to the festival concerts will thus be able to see a unique collection of works by leading Czech artists who have been inspired by the theme My Country. 

In Milan Grygar’s work, sound is an essential element. He has been working on his Antiphony series since the mid-1990s, and it was from this series that he selected one painting for Art Salon. Antiphon is a musical form derived from liturgical verse. It allows for the expression of the relationship between two sound elements colliding in the same space and time, usually radically contrasting, but at the same time in a certain way mutually satisfying. The image to be seen is also based on the essence of visual contrast and sound articulation. In this context, we can recall the Prague Spring concert in 2011, where Grygar’s graphic scores were performed. Petr Nikl created a work called My My Country and applied ink and india ink of six colours to the space of the painting, which he divided into six segments. These were then spread across the canvas by mechanised beetles to create the final form of the work. Ivan Pinkava will present the photograph My Fatherland, in which he reflects on his relationship to “My Fatherland” as a symbol that he subjects to his own research. In the photograph, he plays out an untold story that comments in hints on his personal relationship or view on the essence of himself, his homeland and existence in general. In his painting No.78, Jakub Roztočil works for the first time with a colour spectrum of six starting colours, which is the number of symphonic poems of My Homeland. Using a self-assembled visualization generative brush, his work incorporates a painting – and at the same time an object and a sound recording – that transitions into an autonomous work. The artist Ira Svobodová was inspired by her favourite poem from the mentioned cycle. The painting Šárka, whose main motif is a dynamically shaped pink ribbon, is based on the dynamics of the score and the story of the poem, which, in the artist’s words, is full of betrayal, love and tension. Daniel Vlček’s work is intrinsically linked to the world of music. In the past, he established himself as a prominent representative of the music and performance scene, but now he is increasingly profiling himself as a painter and conceptual artist working with the visual capture of sound. For the Prague Spring he created a painting called Spherical Event III, inspired by the motif From the Czech Meadows and Groves.

These six works will be on display during concerts at the Rudolfinum and the Municipal House throughout this year’s Prague Spring Festival. On 26 May, the KODL Gallery will hold an auction at the Žofín Palace and Artslimit.com, where the works will be auctioned off. “We are delighted and at the same time extremely appreciative to be able to participate in this amazing project. From the very beginning I believed that under the guidance of a pair of experienced curators we would see top quality work by outstanding artists. Collectors have much to look forward to.” Martin Kodl, owner of KODL Gallery, says. At the closing concert of Prague Spring in the Municipal House on 3 June, the auction results will be announced and the proceeds will be used for the further development of the festival.

With this project, the Prague Spring Art Salon establishes a new tradition of the festival’s accompanying art programme. This is also why the graphic artwork was created independently of the festival visuals and was developed by the Dynamo Design studio. This also confirms Art Salon’s exceptional position among the festival’s accompanying events.