Opening
The opening ceremony will take place on Friday, September 9, at 5 p.m. in the piazzetta of the New Stage of the National Theatre. The organizers will welcome foreign and Czech guests of the festival, including photographer Marie Tomanová and curator and art historian Thomas Beachdel, both from New York, gallerist Maryna Shcherbenko, who founded the MUHI Young Artist Award at the Shcherbenko Art Center in Kyiv, theorist and scholar Céline Sabari Poizat from Paris, who researches the most current tendencies in contemporary art in her platform Nonfiction, multimedia artist Bora Akıncıtürk, who is originally from Turkey but is now based in London and whose exhibition will on display in Prague during the festival, and independent and internationally active cultural manager Albertine Kopp from Switzerland, who founded the non-profit program Caribbean Art Initiative, as well as many others.
The opening ceremony will also include the announcement and awarding of ten artists from the Artefin Gallery’s open call for the best digital artwork (NFT), which aims to support the work of progressive artists and the creation of original digital artworks. The winners in the Audience Award and Professional Jury Award categories will receive monetary rewards ranging from 25,000 to 150,000 CZK, and the winning works from the professional category will be auctioned off during the week of the festival, with the proceeds going to charity.
Program highlights
One of the most notable events of the festival will be the very first opportunity to see the Havrlant Art Collection, a private Czech collection owned by Kateřina and Jakub Havrlant. The works will be displayed in a group exhibition entitled HAC #1, which, like the collection itself, focuses on young artists and progressive contemporary art from Central and Eastern Europe. Another work from the Havrlant Art Collection, the video Lost Case by laureate of the Jindřich Chalupecký Award Roman Štětina, will be screened on Saturday at the Ponrepo cinema with the artist in attendance. Visitors to Prague will also have the opportunity to leave a message through Federico Díaz’s experimental installation Aerial or to meet one of the most famous contemporary Czech photographers, Marie Tomanová, who will be giving a lecture together with other guests from abroad on the afternoon of Tuesday, September 13, at the Superstudio in the New Stage of the National Theatre.
Large institutions will be worth a visit during the festival weekend
One big attraction of the festival weekend is the opportunity to visit Prague’s newest institution dedicated to the visual arts, Kunsthalle Praha, which on the weekend of September 10–11 will be offering visitors of PAW free admission to the exhibition Midnight of Art, which presents the private collection and extensive cultural activities of Karel Babíček. During the week of September 9–15, Kunsthalle Praha will also host an accompanying program, including an online talk with Nancy Davidson and Marisa Ravalli-Příhodová on September 14. Similarly, the Prague City Museum, which is currently renovating its main building, will offer a free program at its Norbertov Study and Documentation Centre and will also invite visitors on a walk to see Prague’s architecture. On Saturday at 3 p.m. the New Stage will host a free workshop with photographer David Gaberle, which will consist of a one-hour lecture followed by a photo session with Fujifilm cameras on the streets of Prague.
On Saturday, September 10, all the buildings of the Prague City Gallery (GHMP) will be open for the symbolic price of one crown. The Biennale Matter of Art, which is organized by GHMP and tranzit.cz, will be taking place during the entire week of the festival. The biennale’s free exhibitions and accompanying program address the relationships between gender, race, class, sexuality, and geopolitics in an almost therapeutic way. National Gallery Prague is offering a 50 % discount on admission to all of its venues on Sunday, September 11, and it also invites visitors to several events that accompany the exhibitions MOVE: Intimacy as Resistance, Coming Soon, and ZENGA.
Galerie Rudolfinum is organizing a free workshop for children on September 11 to accompany the exhibition Fragilités. The DOX Centre for Contemporary Art is holding a family workshop on September 10 and a guided tour of the exhibition Power(less) on September 11, both with free admission for visitors of PAW 22. The Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague will make its accompanying programs available free of charge, including tickets to exhibitions where the programs are held, and it also invites those interested to take a walk through Josef Sudek’s Prague. Friday to Sunday will also be the last chance to visit MeetFactory for the exhibition Let Me Hear Your Footprints and draw inspiration from the experiential symposium Discovering Other Knowledge, both of which focus on new tendencies in art and society. International guests of the symposium and PRAGUE ART WEEK 22 will include Nadim Samman, curator at the KW Institute in Berlin, and Charlotte Jarvis, an artist and lecturer who focuses on the connection between art and science.
On Sunday, festivalgoers can visit a quiet courtyard in the city center at Campus Hybernská, where Barbora Valášková’s exhibition Blau will open at HYB4 Gallery D and where there will be a music lounge, street food, and an afterparty with DJs from the group Sady Kolektiv.
Most of the festival’s exhibitions are free of charge, but in some locations, you will need to show your festival pass or make a reservation. The organizers recommend checking the website pragueartweek.cz, the printed PAW catalogue (available at partner galleries and the Superstudio), or the September supplement of the magazine Art Antiques.
The festival week from Monday to Thursday, September 12–15
The center of the festival and the meeting point for guests and participants will be the so-called Superstudio in the New Stage of the National Theatre, which is located in the very heart of Prague. From there, it will be possible to embark on various festival routes into the individual districts of the city. Right in Prague 1, visitors will find 22 festival venues. They can begin, for example, at one of the oldest and most prestigious auction houses in Prague, the Kodl Gallery, which is presenting an exhibition for the online auction Artslimit, featuring a balanced selection of nineteenth- and twentieth-century art with overlaps into contemporary works by artists such as František Drtikol, Emil Filla, Václav Špála, Karel Malich, Georges Kars, Jiří Georg Dokoupil, and Toyen. A stone’s throw from the Kodl Gallery, festivalgoers can visit the Topič Salon for exhibitions at the galleries Cermak-Eisenkraft and 1. Art Consulting CZ. A new exhibition by Marian Palla will open the season for ETCETERA ART in their gallery on Hradební Street, and the exhibition Monochrome by the Japanese duo RYUHA can be found in the gallery Kvalitář.
The second most represented district is Prague 7, which will come alive with openings and guided tours on Wednesday, September 14. Several galleries in the area are hosting SUMO Prague, an art show focused on collaboration with foreign institutions. Visitors will thus be able to see exhibitions prepared in Prague in collaboration with gallerists and artists from Germany, Denmark, Greenland, Japan, France, or Turkey in the case of Holešovická Šachta, which is also preparing an opening and an afterparty. Czech artists will also be exhibited in the neighborhood, including Jiří Pitrmuc at Stone Projects, Tono Stano at Trafo Gallery, and Tomáš Němec at The Chemistry Gallery.
The festival will also take place in the municipal districts Prague 3, 5, 6, and 8, where the organizers recommend visiting several locations at once, based on the daily itineraries and individual routes marked on the festival map (at pragueartweek.cz and in the program catalogue). The festival will also lead visitors to locations outside of the city center in Prague 10 or 12, where there is, for example, a unique opportunity to visit the still-under-construction PSN Vanguard building to see the pop-up exhibition on the thirteenth floor. Lukáš Raise’s outdoor exhibition at the Bastion in Prague 2 will offer another unique experience. It is easy to move between the individual city districts using public transport or commuter trains, and Festival m3 / Art in Space will also be taking place at a number of train stations in and around Prague during PRAGUE ART WEEK 22. On Sunday, September 11, in the town of Měšice u Prahy one will be able to visit an exhibition organized by Artefin and explore the open house of the ARTEX Campus.
In addition to museums, galleries, and auction houses, the festival also includes two selected art studios – Loft BubNY and Studio Prám – as well as the new residential gallery Untitled-Art, where visitors will be able to meet directly with artists on a designated day and time or by appointment.
The accompanying program of PRAGUE ART WEEK 22, which aims to expand the perspective of visitors, artists, and collectors, will take place at the Superstudio in the New Stage of the National Theatre. The building stands out with its unique 1970s brutalist architecture, and the adjacent piazzetta of the National Theatre lends itself to meeting and networking. The overarching theme of the lectures, masterclasses, and discussions is “NET” – a theme articulating the network of relationships and collaboration that connects the entire art sector. From Monday to Thursday there will be a program of lectures, debates, and masterclasses that will focus on art careers, the support and promotion of contemporary art, critical reflection on the visual arts, art investment, art collecting, art preservation, and know-how and networking in the culture sector. In addition to international guests, local experts such as William Rudolf Lobkowicz will speak about the care and preservation of art collections in the session on art collecting, in which the Art+ platform will also present the first Czech survey of art collectors, created in cooperation with J&T Banka Art.
The program at the PAW Superstudio will be free of charge but with a limited capacity. Participants can register at GoOut.cz from 1 September.
Useful informations
Programme:
– Admission to most PAW 22 exhibitions and events is free. Exceptions are the major Prague exhibition institutions, Kunsthalle Praha and the Museum of the City of Prague, which have granted free admission to PAW visitors on the weekend of 10-11 September, plus free admission to their accompanying programmes. The Kampa Museum is providing PAW visitors with free admission to its permanent exhibitions on the weekend of 10-11 September, plus free entry to their accompanying programmes with the exhibition ticket. In all the buildings of the Prague City Gallery on Saturday, 10 September, admission will be 1 CZK. The Biennale Matter of Art 2022 exhibitions are free of charge throughout. Other exhibitions will be charged according to the Prague City Gallery normal terms and conditions for the rest of the week. The National Gallery Prague offers a 50 % discount on admission in all buildings on Sunday, 11 September and free admission during the accompanying programmes on RSVP via GoOut.cz. The Rudolfinum Gallery is hosting a free workshop for children on September 11. The DOX Centre for Contemporary Art is organizing a free family workshop on 10 September and a guided tour of the exhibition Power(less) exhibition on September 11 with free admission for PAW 22 visitors. Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague is offering free access to accompanying programmes, including tickets to exhibitions where accompanying programmes are held.
– Admission is charged at the Ponrepo cinema and the New Stage of the National Theatre.
– In the case of programmes marked PASS, the programme is only for visitors with PAW 22 PASS, PAW 22 catalogue or ART ANTIQUES magazine Art Card.
– Please note that the opening hours of individual locations differ, more information can be found on the institutions’ websites.
– You can find the complete PAW 22 programme on the pragueartweek.cz website.
– Programmes in the catalogue marked TBA (“to be announced“) will be updated on the pragueartweek.cz website and the festival‘s social media.
– Check the availability and accessibility of all events on the official websites of our partner institutions.
– The organizers and partners reserve the right to change the programme. All up-to-date information can be found on the pragueartweek.cz website.
Ecology:
– Don’t just throw away your PAW 22 catalogue! Even after the festival is over you will still be able to find most of the exhibitions in galleries and museums for another two months! In the case of long-term exhibitions, the catalogue will be useful for the entire year, and in the case of permanent exhibitions even during your next visit to Prague.
Ecology and transportation:
– Move around the city with respect for the locals and for nature. The events in the catalogue are grouped based on where they take place so you can explore as many locations as possible on foot within one district. If you want to save steps, stick to our routes. Use public transport to move between city districts.
– For longer distances, you can also use trains. You can reach the Artefin gallery and the ARTEX complex in Měšice by train that leaves from Masaryk railway station while another eight train stations located within the Prague area will host installations of the m3 Festival / Art in Space.
– Count your steps and share how many kilometers you‘ve walked while enjoying art and what routes you‘ve discovered while covering all the PAW 22 locations.
Afterparty:
– Superstudio PAW is only open until 10 pm. Therefore each day we will be recommending bars to festival-goers. We already know that on Sunday we will meet at the Hybernská Kampus, while on Tuesday at the Holešovická šachta.
*preview photo (c) gallery Untitled Art
