This autumn starts off with a second edition of Prague Art Week, a festival focused on promoting Czech visual art and culture, as well as fostering the environment in which they are created and cultivated. Between 21st and 24th September a variety of exhibitions, vernissages, performances and lectures will be presented around the city, inaugurated by the National Gallery Prague’s Grand Opening. I had the pleasure of interviewing Lenka Bakešová, the director of both this year’s and pilot editions, and learning about the art fair’s sustainable, collaborative approach, distinguished guests invited to share their insight, new venues relating to municipal buildings in Czechoslovakia, along with pros and cons of being in charge of a high-profile cultural enterprise.
Aleksandra Janicka: As art fairs and festivals become more popular worldwide and thus rise in numbers, what would you say is Prague Art Week’s distinguishing factor? What makes the event stand out?
Lenka Bakešová: The concept of PAW is based on the approaches of some older, well-renowned art week such as those in Vienna and Berlin. But the Prague art scene itself is very distinct and has its own specifics, therefore shapes the programme of the festival, which thus takes on an identity of its own and steps out of the shadow of other similar events. Historically there have been a lot of off-spaces in Prague – plenty of fertile ground for progressive art. Art still plays a community role here, and the city’s scene is quite open-minded and daring.
AJ: How will this edition of PAW differ from the pilot one? What are the innovations and additions you have implemented this year?
LB: The festival is more focused on live and short-term events. According to our numbers, visitors preferred these kinds of events over, for example, free admission to permanent collections. We dared to co-produce more exhibitions and artworks this year. We co-organised a performance by Michele Rizzo at the National Gallery Prague, and are also producing an entire exhibition venue – the former NRB bank building in the city centre, provided by the festival’s partner PSN for the duration of the whole event. On several floors of the bank, which was built in the first decade of this century, the characteristic aesthetics of panoply and lavishness will meet the critical reflection and interventions of Eastern European artists of the young and middle generations. The individual exhibitions will consist of the private collection Pekelné sáně (presenting works by Tomáš Roubal and Tomáš Bárta, with an intervention by Jan Nálevka), the gallery and collection MOLSKI from Poznań, the book Chrámy peněz (Temples of money), and an exhibition project of the younger generation titled Who Moved My Cheese?
AJ: The theme of a man and his relationship to his environment and other animal species is a current motif across the exhibitions in Prague galleries. Is it also a keynote of this year’s PAW?
LB: We believe that culture plays an important role in shaping the environment in which we live and is a strategic investment for a modern society. As part of the PAW festival, we strive not only to promote the broad potential and visibility of the visual arts in Prague but also to foster the environment in which art is created. Last year, the festival’s accompanying programme was called NET, through which we created collaborative networks in order to cultivate a new, sustainable, cooperation. This time we have decided on the subtitle PLAN_T for the festival, our podcast Art Week, and the conference in the Superstudio, because it perfectly captures the motifs of green planning and sustainable growth. This year, the exhibitions reflect the themes of the search for identity and humanity. Many of the artists have also taken an ecological approach, and we are pleased that a large number of the works were created from recycled materials. However, everyone reads art from their own perspective, and it remains transcendental and inscrutable, so themes such as magic and the occult are also featured in the programme. Art either enchants and transports you to other worlds or it activates you. I haven’t had the chance to see a lot of upcoming exhibitions yet. What is certain is that we will harvest what we have PLAN_Ted!
AJ: The festival will take place in more than thirty art spaces and institutions around Prague, including the enigmatic Secret Place – a new open-air art gallery set to be revealed on the opening day of PAW. Could you tell me about those venues?
LB: In the end, it will be more than forty locations, including the six largest art institutions in Prague – National Gallery Prague, Prague City Gallery, Kunsthalle Praha, DOX Centre for Contemporary Art, Galerie Rudolfinum, and MeetFactory – which will have special programmes and days with free admission. There will also be two high-profile festivals, both focused on very progressive international art, and where the most topical social themes can be observed – SUMO Prague 23: Joy of Despair and Fotograf Festival 13: Hypertension23. We also continue to present a lot of solo exhibitions of Czech artists. I believe that Eliška Konečná’s artworks are much anticipated in Prague, as well as the collages by one of the most internationally known Czech artists, Jiří Kovanda. And then there’s the Secret Place, which is kind of unique. Under communism in Czechoslovakia there was a rule for the construction of municipal developments that 4 percent of the budget had to go towards the creation of on-site artworks. They weren’t always high-quality, but it resulted in some great sculptural realisations in the public space. After 1990, however, the rule was forgotten, and other than a few monuments, the state no longer commissions many artists. Residential construction in Prague is currently driven by large real estate investors, who are gradually coming around to the idea that art belongs in their developments. In the last five years, several high-quality art projects have been commissioned by private construction companies in Prague. The Secret Place will be one of them. In the first stage it will feature eight artworks and in the second – twelve, which will put it in first place among similar developments in terms of the number of artworks on display.
AJ: Alongside various vernissages, performances, and concerts, the audience will also have the opportunity to partake in lectures and discussions with distinguished guests. What are the topics which will be introduced during this edition of the festival?
LB: We have arranged a programme for professionals in the Superstudio, which will present four thematic blocks: Art Reflection, on international cooperation between art projects; Art Career, consisting of artist talks with Magdalena Jetelová and Tadeáš Podhradský; Art Service, on the topic of the art market and counterfeiting; and Art Collecting, which involves an interview with Kateřina Havrlantová and Pavlína Pudilová, moderated by Karolina Brichtova who manages the Collectors Circle community at UBS – the partner of the block. The professional programme is reserved for PAW PASS holders but will be streamed online afterward. Art lovers in the general public will have an opportunity to partake in other lectures, for instance, ‘Why is Kupka so Cheap?’ at Museum Kampa, or artist talks with Janice Kerbel (as a part of Ora et lege), or with Stef Van Looveren & Stephanie Comilang (Fotograf Festival).
AJ: The first edition brought thousands of visitors to the festival. Is PAW targeted at any particular audience? What demographics do you expect this year?
LB: Last year the festival was a part of the culture programme of the Czech presidency of the EU’s Council, so it lasted a full seven days, during which around ten thousand people visited the individual galleries. This time we want to be a bit more modest and sustainable (there is, after all, still a war raging not far from our border), so PAW will run for only four days. As for how this edition will turn out, we’ll just have to wait and see. Last year, with the post-Covid climate, we welcomed loads of international guests, most of whom came at our personal invitation. This year we already know of dozens of visitors who are coming to PAW of their own initiative. It is important for us that we have established a network with Berlin and Vienna, and now we are working on forming links with Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary, but also London – Mayfair, Stockholm, and Barcelona, with whom we have set up the networking group Spider NET.
AJ: In an interview with Vogue from 2022 you have described yourself as a ‘promoter of contemporary art’, which is reflected in your engagement with, alongside other cultural projects, Prague Art Week. What do you find to be the greatest challenges in working for PAW, as well as the most surprising and rewarding?
LB: Working with so many people is definitely a double-edged sword. On the one hand, I have to find compromises on a daily basis and channel the ideas of people who have very different views on what Prague Art Week could be. But on the other hand, just being able to personally meet so many interesting, authentic people has enriched me immensely. As most rewarding I see the opportunity to help art and culture itself. One of the guests on the NET podcast series last year, a painter and Gallery ‘A.M. 180’ founder Jakub Hosek, said that ‘if you are taking from art – you should put something back’. That is what I want from our partners and that is what I wish for the whole art environment – to be mindfully sustainable, that is what I PLAN_T.
