Současná česká kresba, 1980, Dům umění města Brna – Dům pánů z Kunštátu: Jiří Valoch a možnost realizace kolektivní výstavy v období tzv. normalizace
| Title in English | Contemporary Czech Drawing, 1980, Brno House of Art - House of Lords of Kubštát: Jiří Valoch and the Possibility of Organizing a Collective Exhibition during the so-called Normalization Period |
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| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2019 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Sešit pro umění, teorii a příbuzné zóny |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Web | https://vvp.avu.cz/sesit/archiv/ |
| Keywords | Jiří Valoch; the normalisation; collective exhibitions; 1980; the Brno House of Arts; Teksty wisualne Lodz |
| Attached files | |
| Description | In 1972 Jiří Valoch was employed as a curator by the The Brno House of Arts – the only Kunsthalle-based institution in then Czechoslovakia. The director Adolf Kroupa and his colleagues were trying to combine the tradition of the interwar avant-garde with the finest foreign art and to give space to ongoing trends. Valoch had considerable curatorial experience already and a network of contacts abroad – but at the same time, he was only 26 years old, which made him one of the young, promising ‘cadres’, seemingly unburdened by the past. Thanks to his professional and personal partnership with Gerta Pospíšilová (the director of The Brno House of Arts until 1975), he had relatively substantial possibilities to organize exhibitions both at home and abroad, as well as exhibitions of his own work. The theme of the paper is the preparation of the Současná česká kresba [Contemporary Czech Drawing] exhibition (The Brno House of Arts, 1980). Valoch’s original intention was to present a wide range of approaches to drawing, ranging from the traditional to project-based and conceptual art. It should also have included artists who could not exhibit in any other official exhibition places, mainly in Prague. The article describes the methods of curtailing the original intention, the work of the approval committee, and the exclusion of certain artists. In the end, the realization of the exhibition brought Valoch noticeable sanctions (a ban on publishing his texts in exhibition catalogues and newspapers for a few years and compulsory tasks at The House of Arts). The paper also shows that the possibilities of collective exhibitions varied a lot in the socalled Eastern bloc countries – some collective exhibition projects in which Valoch participated or which he conceived in Poland in the 1970s can be seen as a counterpart. |
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