Response from SPGBR to the open letter from Director Mgr. Kateřina Melenová

MgA. Kateřina Melenová
Director of the Benedikt Rejt Gallery
Pivovarská 34
440 01 Louny Subject: Response of SPGBR to the open letter of Director Mgr. Kateřina Melenová

Dear Director,
As is clear from its name, the association is a group of friends of the Benedikt Rejt Gallery, which is a cultural institution and the ideas upon which the gallery was founded. That you are unfamiliar with the personalities of its founders, its long-standing activities, and yet make categorical judgments, is not its fault, but rather your personal deficit.
The association was formed immediately in the interest of protecting the Gallery against imminent construction interventions within the framework of the so-called lower structure remediation. This was also reflected in the composition of the founding members, namely architects and builders, who actively, with the legal support of Dr. Kervitcerová, helped with professional assistance to avert the threats of unqualified interventions. The long-term professional interest of the association's members in the building logically grew into support for the activities of the Gallery under the leadership of Director PhDr. Alice Štefančíková.
As you know from our mutual meeting upon your arrival at the Gallery, your professional qualifications for leading a visual arts museum, particularly one as specialized as the Benedikt Rejt Gallery in Louny, raised concerns in us; however, we believed that in the first months of your tenure, you would familiarize yourself with the existing activities of the gallery. Therefore, the association did not comment on your actions, no matter how much they deviated from the previous concept.
The activities of the association concerned exclusively the announcement and course of the selection procedure, which was organized through the current leadership of the Department of Culture and Heritage Protection by the former leadership of the Ústí Region and were not intended for you, but were addressed solely to the former and current leadership of the region.
We do not know what content from these letters you consider to be invective when they arose from the same reasons that prompted the Minister of Culture to approach the governor. You are surely aware that the question of the justification and legality of the selection procedures has been a subject of public discussion in the press and among professionals since they were announced, discussions that were not initiated by your appointment, nor by your specific actions in the gallery itself.
Surely, you do not deny the association the right to express an opinion on the justification of announcing selection procedures, their course, and results. Therefore, please clearly state what specifically from the content of our letters you consider to be invectives damaging the good name of the institution. If you are unable to differentiate what belongs to the association and what is solely a reaction from those former gallery staff directly affected by the consequences of your actions, or a personal expression of the public that has long voiced objections to the actions of the region and evaluates its steps in the selection procedure in that context. They too are part of the public, but not members of the association.
Internal matters of the gallery have not yet been the subject of our submissions as long as they do not touch upon facts such as the GBR Concept for the years 2021-2025 that you mentioned. Therefore, we are also prepared for such a discussion if the Councilor for Culture Mgr. Řehák and former Director PhDr. Štefančíková are willing to participate; representatives of the association will be allowed adequate prior familiarization with the internal audit and current condition of the gallery building and will receive a substantive response to the above-mentioned questions raised by your open letter. Without that, the dialogue would be limited to only demagogical obfuscation and the rendering of truth.
Let us therefore wait for the outcome of the discussion of our letters at the meeting of the ÚK Council on 26.4.2021, of which we were informed by Mgr. Řehák, and the lifting of measures that currently prevent such proceedings.

Sincerely,

Tomáš Novotný,
Vice-Chairman of the Association

Cc:
Deputy Governor for Culture of the Ústí Region Mgr. Jiří Řehák, Department of Culture of the ÚK, City of Louny, AMG, RGCR, MKČR, Archiweb, A2, Artalk, Culturnet, GBR Advisory Board, Culture and Heritage Protection Committee of the ÚK Council, Cultural Commission of the City of Louny