interesting...
this is not by tamas but it was forwarded by him
anyone know any more?
----- Original Message -----
From: "St. Auby Tamas" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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PRAGUE BIENNALE 2
PRAGUE BIENNALE is the one and only PRAGUE BIENNALE
The first edition ofPRAGUEBIENNALE took place in 2003. On that
occasion we asked the Prague National Gallery to host the exhibition.
The director of the gallery, Milan Knizak, conceded this hospitality
reluctantly and continuously tried to hinder the event (suffice it to
think that he forbade us the use of the photocopiers, the fax machines
and the computers belonging to the National Gallery, thus compelling
us to use an Internet point outside the National Gallery building).
But the most hateful and improper gesture was denying our
Producer/Manager, Jiri Prihoda, access to the National Gallery, for
the completely trivial and personal reason that Prihoda had dared to
criticize one of Knizak's very own installations during a debate. But
the cherry on the cake was that Knizak took, for his own benefit, the
money earned from the entrance tickets to the Biennale, a total of
100.000 euros, with the excuse that there was only a verbal, not a
written agreement.
For this second edition, since the very beginning we have excluded the
possibility of working with a person who is unprofessional and
basically unscrupulous, such as Milan Knizak, who uses the Prague
National Gallery as his own personal feud (and where he has created,
as if he was a great protagonist of the art scene, close to Beuys, a
room of his own).
For those who live outside theCzech Republicand do not
knowMilanKnizak, perhaps a brief introduction is necessary. One of the
latest Fluxus artists and certainly not one of the best, he is known
to have been a bit of a rebel in the past, opposing local traditions
and systems. After the fall of the Berlin wall and thanks to his many
friends who were politicians (and not exactly progressive ones), in
particular the President of the Republic, Klaus, he began his
unstoppable ascension that in no time at all took him from being a
simple professor to becoming the Director of the Academy of Fine Arts
and immediately after the Director of the National Gallery and of all
the museums in Prague as well as a member of the Board of Directors of
the state television.
TheCzech Republic's desertion of the international art scene
An all round man of power indeed. Power which in a short while made
him forget his past as an arsonist and made him become a fierce and
implacable enemy of every form of new and progressive/avant-garde art.
He bitterly fights and boycotts all the young artists fromPragueand
only patronizes the mediocre and incapable ones. He becomes the
paladin and supporter of the most backwardPragueretro-garde by
exhibiting it in his National Gallery and trying to export it abroad.
Never have the artists of the Czech Republic received so little
attention and consideration abroad as during the last few years due to
the lack of support and encouragement from the National Gallery.
AndMilanKnizak is the only one responsible for the total absence
ofPragueand Czech art on the international art scene. Just when new
and interesting cultural and artistic proposals such as those
ofPoland, theSlovak RepublicandHungary, were starting to come into the
limelight,MilanKnizak was slow to support artists of any quality.
Consequently it would have been impossible to even consider working
together onPRAGUE BIENNALE 2, which was conceived, promoted, financed,
created (thanks to the enlightened sponsor Mattoni) and brought to
success despite the continual ill-treatment and boycotting that Mr.
Knizak subjected us to in 2003. Reluctantly and only to take away our
ideas and possible advantages, he gave us hospitality in his National
Gallery (sending us also the bill for the postage stamps for the
invitations that we had printed ourselves and brought to Prague, as
well as the electricity bill at the end of the exhibition!).
And we, being people who like to work calmly and without traumas (the
work and stress are tiring enough without additional trauma from
internal battles) tried to find a venue for the new edition of PRAGUE
BIENNALE that was not the National Gallery, having to face substantial
stress and costs that reduced our already limited budget.
But do you know what happened? Dear old Milan Knizak, who for decades
has never done a thing, who in his National Gallery never hosted an
exhibition of contemporary art apart from the routine ones passed on
to him by local cultural institutes (for example recently: an
exhibition of Chinese watercolors) as a response to our unwillingness
to work with him anymore, suddenly decided to organize a PRAGUE
BIENNALE of his own, knowing perfectly well that the idea behind the
biennale and name belonged to us. But it does not end there: seeing
his total incompetence and that of his staff, apart from wanting to
name the exhibitionPRAGUEBIENNALE, he is trying to invite those
curators that we had invited for the first edition. The majority of
these curators are scandalized and refuse, yet he manages to catch
some renegades who are starved of curatorial projects.
Milan Knizak's group show will have to
change its name shortly
Despite continual requests from our lawyer and injunctions of the
Prague Court of Justice that invite him to change the name of the
event (our copyright on the brand does not allow someone else to
associate the name of Prague with an international art biennale),
confident of his backing from politicians coupled with his arrogance,
he continues unabatedly to call a most ordinary and disassembled group
show the "Prague International Biennale," thus wrongly inducing
curators, artists and members of the public who think that they are
taking part in our Prague Biennale whereas in reality they are taking
part in a simple group show that will shortly have to change its name.
Those who have been invited to take part inPRAGUEBIENNALE2are
exclusively the artists and curators who received an invitation signed
by GiancarloPolitiandHelena Kontova.
In the light of the hundreds of letters of explanation that we receive
from curators and artists who have been invited by Knizak who thought
they were going to be taking part in our Biennale, we felt it our duty
to clarify our position with regard to this ambiguity. For this reason
we are telling everyone that PRAGUE BIENNALE IS THE ONE AND ONLY
PRAGUE BIENNALE and will be held from the 26th May at the venue
ofKarlin Hall (Thamova 8-14)where we shall be waiting for you all to
see together the most grandiose and interesting exhibition in Central
Europe. The other exhibition at the National Gallery is merely a group
show, a caravan of artists and curators that act as testimony of
MilanKnizak's mental confusion and his sole desire to bring harm to
others.
Please visit thePRAGUEBIENNALE 2 website:www.praguebiennale.org
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