The Exhibition as a Medium. Czech Art 1957 – 1999

How are exhibitions of fine art reflected in its written history? And what would the history of Czech art in the second half of the 20th century look like if we focused on it from this point of view?

While traditionally art history is conceived as a history of styles and focuses on individual artists and their works, in this publication entitled "The Exhibition as a Medium," it is conceived from the point of view of what's known as exhibition histories, which at the turn of the millennium became a new artistic discipline in the West. Czech art in the second half of the 20th century is, thus, presented against the background of groundbreaking exhibitions that co-shaped its development in the years 1957–1999. Over 1,000 pages long, the publication reconstructs 60 carefully selected exhibitions, both through textual and visual documentation. The exhibition is understood in the book to be an autonomous format of cultural production, but also a tool for promoting certain forms of art, its functions, and public legitimacy. The archive, divided into five periods, presents three separate studies that follow the methodology of the current exhibition discourse, the history of exhibitions, and the changing institutional conditions of exhibiting in a given period, as well as the still undeveloped topic of authors and organisers of exhibitions, later referred to as curators.

The book brings about new perspectives on the current interpretations of the development of Czech visual arts after 1957. Although it deals with history, it also poses questions that are directly based on the form of contemporary art and its current problems.

Product information

Authsor: Pavlína Morganová, Terezie Nekvindová, Dagmar Svatošová
Publisher: Scientific and research workplace of AVU
Language: Czech, English
Year of issue: 2020
Number of pages: 1035