Czech
Czech Art 1938-1989
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Publication


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 Jiri Sevcik / Pavlina Morganova / Dagmar Duskova
Czech Art 1938-1989
manifestos / critical texts / documents
(published by ACADEMIA publishing house in co-operation with AVU) Prague 2001
The anthology contains basic manifestos and theoretical texts that deal with major art movements, art groups, significant exhibitions and other events related to Czech art during the years 1938-1989, and is supplemented by numerous cultural-political documents, speeches and texts on Czech historical events during a period full of major developments. Each of the five chronologically compiled chapters is introduced by a short critical text from the editors including the given period in a historical context. The anthology also includes a selective chronology of cultural, political and artistic events during the period of 1938-1989.
The book is a useful aid for art historians and theoreticians, artists and journalists as well as others interested in Czech post-war art. A grant from the Czech Ministry of Education and Ministry of Culture supported the book's publishing.
Czech Art 1938-1989 is priced at CZK 295,- in all Academia bookstores.

Annotations

The original plan for the grant project was to compile a strictly selective anthology of essential manifestos of Czech art after World War II. In preparing the anthology, however, the problem arose that there exists only a small number of pure manifestos in Czech post-war art and that numerous important currents of the times were not at all represented. Eventually the anthology came to include manifestos as well as critical texts and essays, which were supplemented by important period politico-historical documents, covering the entire context of the years 1938-1989.
For clarity's sake, the anthology is divided into five chapters, whose periods respect the historical and cultural turning points in Czech society. Each period is introduced by a short text from the editors:

  • The first period "1938 -1947" includes the war period, which is an important starting point for the entire post-war period, and a short liberal period following the end of World War II. (pp. 13 - 102).
  • The second period "1948 - 1956" is marked by the February putsch, the 20th Congress of the Soviet Union Communist Party and the re-organisation of the Association of Czechoslovak Artists, in which art groups were allowed to be established (pp. 103 -186).
  • The third period "1957 - 1963" includes the period of gradual thawing in Czech politics and the culture (pp. 187 - 244).
  • The fourth period "1964 - 1969" marks the short period of free development of Czech culture. The dividing line is 1964 in which a new chairmanship of the Association of Czechoslovak Artists was chosen and Czech society took the path of general liberalisation (pp. 245 - 334).
  • The fifth period "1970 - 1989" includes the "normalisation" period and ends with 1989 - the year of the revolution.

In light of the fact that over five hundred texts were closely considered and less than a hundred and twenty of these actually made it into the anthology, it was necessary to edit them. Only extracts from the lengthier texts were reprinted. Each text is introduced by a short annotation that includes bibliographical data on where the text can be found in original form.

Table of contens

Acknowledgements
Editor's note

Preface

1938-1947
Karel Teige The Surrealist Position 1938
Karel Teige Styrsky and Toyen
Disbandment of the Surrealist Group
Karel Teige Concerning the Case of Vitezslav Nezval and the Surrealist Majority
Vitezslav Nezval Nezval on the Dissolution of Surrealist Groups
Vitezslav Nezval A Speech to Students on the Rupture of a Group of
Surrealists We'll Stay Loyal!
Kamil Bednar A Word to the Youth
Pavel Kropáček Sedm v rijnu
Jindrich Chalupecky The World in which We Live
Jiri Kotalik Gross, Hak, Hudecek, Kotik, Lhotak, Smetana, Zivr
Jan Grossman The War Generation
The Group Ra
Zdenek Nejedly For a Folk and National Culture
Karel Teige Entartete Kunst
Jindrich Chalupecky The End of the Modern Age
Jindrich Chalupecky Culture and Politics
Vincenc Kramar The Cultural-Political Programme of the Czechoslovak Communist Party and Art
The May Message of Cultural Workers to the Czech People
The Ideological Programme of the Agreement of Czech Artists-Realists
The Exhibition of Pictures of Soviet National Artists
Miloslav Chlupac The Soviet Exhibition
Alexandr Zamoskin xhibition of Soviet Painters in Prague
An Open Letter from Students of the Applied Arts College to Moscow Pravda
Emil Filla on the Russian Exhibit / A Dual Artistic Attempt
Greetings!
1947-1956
Vladimir Boudnik Manifesto of Explosionism No. 2
Vladimir Boudnik Explosionism
Zbynek Sekal An Epilogue or An Abdication
Jiri Kolar Years in Days
An Appeal to Artists
Zdenek Nejedly On Genuine and Fake Realism
The National Culture Conference
Ladislav Stoll Reality Face to Face
Vaclav Kopecky We Will Cultivate Every Corner of the Country
Vaclav Kopecky A Marxist-Lenin Upbringing
Vladimir Solta Regarding a Few Questions on Social Realism in Art
Josef Cisarovsky, Jaromir Neumann Concerning a Question on So-called Modern Art
Karel Teige Realism
"The Court" with Emil Filla
Frantisek Dvorak Preface to the Exhibition of Eleven
The Founding of Art Groups
The Voice of the Youth
The Main Speech from the Preparation Committee of the Association of Czechoslovak Artists
Articles of Association of the Association of Czechoslovak Artists
The Founding of the Art Group Maj

1957-1963
Emil Utitz Five Meditations Concerning the Dilemma of Realism
Exhibition of the Founders of Modern Czech Art
Miroslav Lamac The Founders of Modern Czech Art
Jiri Brhlik The Founders of Modern Czech Art
Vaclav Formanek Thoughts on the Founder Exhibition in Prague
Ludek Novak Modern Realism
Jan Kotik, Josef Istler, Mikulas Medek From Czechoslovak Art
Frantisek Dvorak Art Group Maj 57
Josef Brukner The Tame Generation
Arsén Pohribný Trasa 54
Founding Declaration of the Association of Czechoslovak Artists' Art Group "Rijen"
Confrontation of Brno Art Groups
Petr Spielmann Brno
Jan Maria Najmr M Brno
Vaclav Zykmund Parabola
Igor Zhor Profil
Jaromir Zemina UB 12
Josef Cisarovsky Exhibition of Young Czechoslovak Artists 1958
11th Congress of the Czechoslovak Communist Party and Problems of Our Art
Appeal to the Socialist Culture Congress
Jiri Hendrych The Speech at the 1960 Congress of the Association of Czechoslovak Artists
Frantisek Smejkal Non-figurative Art in Czechoslovakia
Mikulas MedekA Text from the Catalogue of the Exhibition in Teplice 1963

1964-1968
Resolution of the Congress of the Association of Czechoslovak Artist
Frantisek Smejkal Exhibition D
Frantisek Smejkal, Vera Linhartova Imaginative Painting
Jan Kriz Smidrove
Stanislav Dvorsky, Vratislav Effenberger, Petr Kral Awareness of a Crises and a Crises of the Conscience
The Post-Surrealist Circle of the Prague Art School
Kvetoslav Chvatik The Sense of Modern Art
Jan Kotik A Look Back
Jiri Kolar Maybe Nothing, Maybe Something
Vaclav Bostik On Myself and on Art
The Group Aktual Art and the Aktual
Aktual Art Manifesto
Milan Knizak Why Just So
Aktual - Live Differently
Jiri Padrta Constructive Tendencies
Arsen Pohribny The Club of Concretists and Guests
Jiri Padrta A New Sensitivity
Prague Kinetic Artists Debut
Ludek Novak Thoughts on the Aesthetics of New Figuration
Eva Petrova New Figuration
Jiri Padrta Thoughts on the Situation
Declaration of the Association of Czechoslovak Artists
Two Thousand Words

1969-1989
Position of Artists and Cultural Workers
From the Meeting of the Preparation Committee of the Association of Czechoslovak Artists and the Proposal of the Articles of Association of the Association of Czechoslovak Artists
Ivan M. Jirous Report on Activities of the Krizovnicka School
Josef Kroutvor Manifesto of the Czech Grotesque
Jiri Valoch Art in the 1970s
Petr Rezek A Meeting with Performance Artists
Frantisek Smejkal Returns to Nature
Declaration of Charter 77
For a New Creativity in the Name of Socialism and Peace
Ivan M. Jirous Report on the Third Czech Musical Revival
Vaclav Havel Six Notes on Culture
Jindrich ChalupeckyArt and Transcendence
Netvorice 1981
Josef Hlavacek Netvorice 1981
Jiri Setlik Thoughts on the Generation Consciousness
Dusan Konecny Our Art Serves the Interest of the People and Socialism
Jana Sevcikova, Jiri Sevcik Art in the 1980s
Jiri David Total Distance during the Period of Social Fading
Founding the groups Tvdohlavi, Volne seskupeni 12/15 Pozde, ale prece and Nova skupina
Vitezslav Konrad Report on the Founding of the art group Tvdohlavi
To the Attention of the Association of Czechoslovak Artists, the Creation of Volne seskupeni 12/15 Pozde, ale prece
Josef Hlavacek, Jiri Setlik, Jaromir Zemina What is the Nova skupina?
Vladimir Kokolia Contributions to the Discussion on Assets of the South Moravian Artists in Brno
A Letter Sent to Delegates of the 4th Congress of the Association of Czechoslovak Artists
A Few Sentences
Artists' Appeal to the Czechoslovak Government, the Central Committee of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, News Media and Fellow Citizens

Chronology
Profiles
Index

Preface

Art history consists of more than works of art, the lives of artists and shifts in style. The processes of contemplating art, which can be perceived as the history of interpretation and take the form of various ideological manifestos, are also a legitimate part of it. These include means of artistic creation, period norms and standards in art, often written in the language of the ruling authority and their institutions. The authors - artists, theoreticians and politicians - attempt to persuade the reader in these writings of a new organisation of society, of a new model of thought and perception. Determining circumstances often forced them to conceal the original reasons for their creation and numerous texts remained unpublished for a long time. If we juxtapose the texts with a more general application in which thoughts on art are collected, we find a vast range of their genres, intellectual position, styles and function. There are texts that intentionally formulate a poetics of art or their defence, texts interpreting traditions and generalising theories; texts, which persuaded through ideology and political argument, or texts offering social models that were to be analogies of a new organisation of society and to focus directly on a change in life in general. Since the period of conceptual tendencies, which quickly spread throughout the world and penetrated all areas of art, even reflection itself can become art.

Manifestos and theoretical texts obviously cannot replace art history. Instead they offer its parallel as stories which society lives through. The actual artistic creation is often in contradiction with them and even works against the terror of their theoretical truths. It parodies their fictions in a scathing game and takes the pathos away from manifestos laying claim to absolute validity. If we inspect them carefully, we see, however, that many of them had an emancipating function and that their claim to veracity was only a way in which they succumbed to a healthy self-destruction and the critical process, while others championed morals and tradition and were accepted as official ideology. The texts on art did not decide what art is, but recorded the change in attitude and values. They show what defined and legitimised art in their period - traditions, the nation, existential experiences, reconstruction of experiences, life in general or art itself.

Thinking on art has its dynamics and is also the stories with which a society goes through history to the future. After the war, ideas on art were ruled by scepticism from abandoned avant-garde utopias, distrust in the abused language of art and an awareness of its feebleness facing the catastrophe of war. The most frequently discussed terms were "modernity" and "authentic experience", standing in opposition to the official regime. The values of European culture were to be renewed in the name of one, while in the name of the other values of authentic experience under the oppression of authority were to be expressed. Art in both cases wanted to emancipate - to separate itself from everyday life under the regime and establish itself outside the realm of political servitude. At the same time, subversive and defence strategies were being planned in which the force of all ideologies perished in an absurd game. However, emancipation attempts in a totally closed environment succumbed to the illusion of local and national originality and moral supremacy. It was not until the 1960s that a connection was established with the more universal Western culture with their neo avant-garde movement and renewed criticism. The tension in models of thinking and perception was a positive, almost therapeutic function as it was conducive for understanding the value of discontinuity, of stepping away from a closed situation and redefining it. Just as this stage was being entered, however, the 1970s ushered in another defensive reaction, a regression to the original model and ideal state. The artistic programmes again found justification for pathos and the highest moral claims. Art came to replace the lost relationship with society and returned to past problems, previously dealt with in the 1950s. A few unofficial events and activities tried to overcome the isolation and maintain contact with the current world art. But they eventually interfused and neutralised the opposing poles: universal values of the modern trends and the carefully guarded authentic experience from an environment that lacks the plurality of a public space. Also at this time, absolute judgement was passed on the commercialism of the Western system and the authoritative bureaucracy of socialism. In response to the inquiry on what the essence of a work of art is, the term "transcendence" was used. This model, accepted by a large part of the unofficial culture as a starting point, alleviated the situation and resolved the dilemma by preserving the authentic experience as well as the hope for overcoming it. It also became one of the reasons for descending to unofficial art or the underground.

The post-modern turn at the end of the 1970s and early 1980s, first in architecture, later in fine arts, rejected the moral programmes of the alternative culture and the good taste and canon of modern art. Historicism soon revealed itself to be a nostalgic evasion and mistaken grasp of the post-modern through the domestic scene. The shattering of the picture into fragments, catch phrases and quotes, however, brought entirely differentiating concepts of the programmes and theories, which are eventually understood as language play and stories that cannot offer definitive solutions. In the words of J.F. Lyotard, the question can no longer be posed: "Do you believe in it or not?", but "What am I to do with it?" From this perspective, we are now to more or less view the manifestos and theoretical texts as proof of the struggle of the meaning and character of art, but with a full awareness that we have can reinterpret, de-mythicise and view in a relative light their definitions. And mainly we can learn about them what we have refused to learn up until now. No definition of art has a privileged validity as the older avant-garde stories had. Today we can at best expose contested cases, but there is no way to repair them and make them right. It would be just as dubious if a pluralistic approach degenerated into a return to a pre-historical period and if once again the residual, unresolved problems, nationalism, historicism and myths were held aloft, awaiting their revival.

Chronology

Part of the anthology is the selective chronology of Czech art 1938 - 1989, which should help orient the reader in the historical and cultural events of the official and so-called unofficial scene. The political-historical boundaries of Czech post-war history, together with those historical events that immediately affected domestic developments, are important footholds for the entire anthology.

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Due to the wide scope of the chronology, only major (predominantly collective) exhibitions were included, with the exception of a few retrospectives of individuals.


Chart-poster

The anthology Czech Art 1938 - 1989 includes a poster schematically depicting the various art movements that appeared on the Czech post-war art scene. The chart represents the timeframe from 1935 - 1990. Each art current is indicated by a coloured band of various widths dependent on intensity with which it was represented in Czech art. Their layout is in no way half-hazard, but endeavours to show the specific relations existing among the individual movements.

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The chart is supplemented by a list of all texts published in the anthology with a detailed coloured icon that aligns a given text with a specific movement. Some texts cannot be specified in this way and therefore do not have a coloured icon. They either have a more general application or are only culturally or politically historical documents of the period.

Reviews

Zde publikujeme vybrané recenze k vydání antologie České umění 1938-1989:
Responses to this review:


Photos from the presentation of the Czech version, Universal NoD, Prague (CZ), 19.12.2001:

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