ABOUT THE PROJECT
The Smetana Litomyšlje ArtFestival is one of the accompanying scenes of the Smetana Litomyšl Music Festival. The SVL has been organised for the sixth year by the Municipal Gallery Litomyšl. The gallery is responsible for the creation of the central exhibitions and also for the joint promotion of all exhibition projects that take place in Litomyšl during the music festival.
WE LIVE IN A TIME OF GREAT OPPORTUNITIES BUT ALSO GREAT PRESSURES
This year, the offer of exhibitions of “Art Litomyšl” is also very varied and covers a wide range of topics from older to contemporary art. And since
one of the intentions of the festival organisers is to connect culture with music, the main festival theme, which is PASSION, also runs through “Art Litomyšl”. –
theme, which is present in visual art primarily as an emotion associated with a lifelong desire to create or as a feeling we experience when we encounter
a work of art. This feeling is often decisive and irreplaceable, because art awakens our imagination, evokes deep emotions and stimulates dialogue. Moreover, in today’s fast-paced and demanding times, full of opportunities and uncertainties, contact with a work of art helps us find balance, has a positive effect on our mental health and strengthens the values of humanity.
MAIN EXHIBITIONS OF SMETANA ART LITOMYŠL
For several decades, Litomyšl has been synonymous with cultivated public space and the works of art that have traditionally populated it. It is part of the tradition of Smetana’s Art Litomyšl that it intervenes in this framework every year through artistic interventions. This year is no different. The open-air exhibition entitled Spaces and Feelings will present the artistic projects of Hynek Skoták, Jan Fabián, Tomáš Džadona, German artist Christof Zwiener and the art group Kolektiv Laundry and Eva Jiřička. In the curatorial concept of the exhibition, which is the responsibility of the curators Marcela Straková, Tea Zachová, Žaneta Richterová, Rostislav Koryčánek and Ondřej Horák, the public space of the city itself plays an essential role, which extends the significance of the selected artworks. The interpretive framework of the work is thus enriched by the problematic places with their memory and complicated cultural, political and ethical layers.
A new exhibition, Slight Connections, at the Municipal Picture Gallery, will also offer visitors to Litomyšl an unusual visual experience.The leitmotif of the exhibition, similar to the open-air show, is confrontation. This time, however, the relationality lies in the comparison of 19th and early 20th century landscape paintings from the collection of the Litomyšl Municipal Gallery with expressions of the contemporary Czech art scene on the theme of landscape, nature and ecology. The traditional artistic genre performed by Julius Mařák, Antonín Chittussi, Josef Voleský, Jaroslav Panuška, Otakar Kubín and others has been removed from its chronological historical context and newly set in the current reality of Juliana Höschlová’s multimedia art, Ruta Putramentaite, Dagmar Šubrtová, Eva Vápenková, Xenia Hoffmeisterová, Tomáš Honze and Michal Machciník in a subtle, often even fragmentary, or on the contrary quite clear formal and content context.
The three main exhibitions of Smetana Art Litomyšl are concluded by the Passion exhibition in the Chateau Brewery, which presents the paintings of Jiří Vincenc Slavíček. The show, organised to celebrate the artist’s seventieth birthday, introduces visitors to the artist’s works from recent years, which are characterised by his bravura painting gestures.
WHERE TO GO TO THE SHOW?
City Picture Gallery, City Exterior, Litomyšl Castle, Castle Brewery, Miroslav Kubik Gallery, August Printing House, Zdeněk Sklenář Gallery, Portmoneum – Josef Váchal Museum, MenART, Smetana’s Poetic Litomyšl, Gallery at Milovská huti, Přespolní, Pakosta Gallery, Kroupa Gallery, White Gallery.
