The National Gallery supplemented modern art with weapons

Prague - The National Gallery in Prague (NG) has opened a new permanent exhibition of modern and contemporary art at the Trade Fair Palace. According to the gallery's management, it is intended to offer a new perspective, particularly on Czech art from the turn of the century, showcasing new contexts and contrasts that this period brought to art. The previous exhibition from 2001 included examples of artistic craftsmanship, which are also present in the new exhibition, and in addition, several weapons have been installed among the paintings and sculptures.
    The exhibition across the five floors of the palace was created by NG director Milan Knížák and director of the Collection of Contemporary and Modern Art Tomáš Vlček. It was opened to visitors on Wednesday.
    Referring to the global economic crisis, they told journalists that NG in the Trade Fair Palace decided to reduce smaller exhibitions and filled the spaces previously designated for them with permanent exhibitions. NG has long faced criticism that it is becoming a museum and not organizing more temporary exhibitions. This week, the museum is indeed becoming so, but Knížák still argues that the role of NG is not that of a kunsthalle, but that it is, by law, a collection and museum institution.
    NG's management also stated that, just like other state institutions, it will have a reduced budget and did not receive several million for increased energy costs. Recently, NG has been focusing more on investment projects, currently reconstructing the Salm Palace and planning several relocations of collections.
    The new exhibition of modern art, according to Knížák, aims to capture the "spirit of Czech art," and it also turns to the roots of modern art, which, according to him, are already present in medieval and baroque works of Czech art. The exhibition begins with works from the late 19th century that already anticipated modern artistic methods and traces the development of Czech art through the significant contributions of individual personalities up to the present day.
    Knížák emphasized that alongside the aesthetic qualities of art, the new exhibition also wants to highlight its social aspects, particularly related to the "social tragedy of the 20th century", namely the two world wars. Therefore, on the third floor, alongside the peaks of Czech cubism, works of social art are installed.
    The combination of machine guns, flamethrowers, cannons, and other weapons with art is, according to Knížák, unique within modern art museums. Vlček justified their presence in the exhibition partly by stating that modern weapons represent a total, stripped-down design; according to him, the Czech lands were also an arms giant between the world wars.
    Works by František Kupka have also been newly installed, with 70 out of 500 owned by NG in the exhibition. NG has the largest collection of Kupka's works of all the world museums, which is appropriate because Kupka is Czech and belongs in the National Gallery, said Knížák. Kupka spent most of his life in France, and at a certain point did not have a good relationship with Czechs, and the French are happy to consider him a French painter.