Jiří Kolář: X Biennial of São Paulo

A chamber exhibition (graphic cabinet) at the National Gallery in Prague – Trade Fair Palace (2nd floor, as part of the collection display 1939–2021: The End of the Black and White Era) commemorates Jiří Kolář's participation in the X Biennial of São Paulo in 1969, where he became one of eight foreign laureates of the biennial prize that September. Through works from Czech museum collections, including the National Gallery in Prague, the exhibition offers a partial reconstruction of the artist's award-winning presentation, based on photographs preserved in the biennial's archive. The works are complemented by archival materials revealing various aspects of his participation in this prestigious yet controversial biennial. The exhibition is curated by Rado Ištok.

Since its founding in 1951, the São Paulo biennial has been a meeting place for art from South and North America, Western Europe, and later the Eastern Bloc. From its first participation in 1957 to the tenth edition in 1969, the curator of Czechoslovak exhibitions was Jiří Kotalík, director of the National Gallery in Prague from 1967 onwards. At the tenth edition, co-curated by Slovak art historian Marián Váross, Czechoslovakia was represented not only by Jiří Kolář but also by Czech artists František Ronovský and Jiří Novák, and their Slovak colleagues Miloš Urbásek, Milan Dobeš, and Michal Jakabčic. The tenth São Paulo Biennial is infamously known in exhibition history for a boycott in which numerous Brazilian and foreign artists protested against censorship and human rights violations by the Brazilian military dictatorship – this coincided with the period more than a year after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. Although Czechoslovak state officials were aware of the boycott, it remains unclear to what extent the artists themselves were informed about it. Kolář's decision to refuse an interview for the journal Výtvarná práce can be seen as a possible expression of significant silence. Shortly thereafter, the artist became a victim of persecution by the Czechoslovak state authorities. The exhibition raises questions about the position of artists working in complex political conditions, not only at home but also in places where their works are displayed.