Accompanying events

Week of Czech Art

Otowa, partner city of the Czech Republic, was the first stop for this accompanying program. There was a celebratory opening in the local cultural centre on May 6th attended by commissioner-general Vladimír Darjanin, the exhibition's curator Marek Pokorný, representatives of the Czech embassy in Tokyo and, understandably, representatives from Otowa headed by the mayor Takeši Utsune.

The 'Nature's Mirror' exhibition is not the only possible overview of contemporary Czech art, nevertheless it presents its diversity on a relatively small canvas. The selection of contributing artists compares representatives of those in their fifties with artists of the middle generation and with examples of the works of the youngest tier of the Czech art scene. Represented at the exhibition are not only paintings but also photographs, installations and videos, in a proportion that roughly corresponds to their occurrence and significance in contemporary Czech art.

The central theme of the exhibition is nature, which is expressed, consciously or inadvertently, by the exhibited artistic pieces. The exhibited work shows how far the relationship with nature and the landscape has changed at the turn of the 21st century. Artists realise that wilderness hardly exists at all in the present world, that nature is a product of human interference and a picture of civilisation processes much more than it used to be. Nature is no longer a window to the world, but has actually become a mirror in which mankind sees itself, its problems, insufficiencies and risks, which it goes through every day without seeing their consequences.

Three mutually dependent and supplementary ways to depict nature in modern art serve as a basis for organising the exhibition - concept, story and meditation. Represented artists include Václav Stratil, Jan Merta, Jana Kalinová, Markéta Othová, Federico Diaz, Jiří Černický, Zbyněk Baladrán, Tomáš Císařovský, Štěpánka Šimlová, Martin Polák and Lukáš Jasanský. At the beginning of July, the exhibition moved to the Sumida Gallery in Tokyo.

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