NEWS | November 25, 2016

A remarkable exhibition entitled “The Phenomenon of the Paper and Book Atelier / Artists’ Books and Objects by J. H. Kocman’s Students” was launched yesterday in the Museum of Modern Art. The exhibition presents one hundred of diverse works by thirty of young artists.

“This exhibition is not here accidentally. In 1990 we decided to expand our collections by original book. Museum of Art is the only Czech institution that systematically deals with the aritists book,” said director Michal Soukup.

For the opening of the exhibition was chosen casual space corridor. “There is an atmosphere like during school exams, when students intensively produce annual work and they wait for the evaluation of professors and colleagues. Always followed by a stormy debate, sometimes until the early hours of the morning,” said Soukup.

Gina Renotière curator admitted that the exhibition was her big dream and yesterday she saw as her important day. “About this exhibition I dreamed so long, that the studio had ceased to exist. It was abolished in 2011 and graduates scattered into the world. I had the difficult but exhilarating task to meet with them after years,” said Renotière. According to her, the exhibition gathers the best of Kocman´s Atelier and shows his profile.

“In the Atelier, which fascinated me, there have all the tools their place on the wall marked their contours. These silhouettes – today without tools – symbolize in the catalog extinction of Atelier,“ she said.

The definition of the Artists’ Book is not simple. The objects are not the books about art, but they are themselves works of art. “It does not work only with paper, also wood, glass and plastic. Each artifact has a character of the book, whether is text line, bookbinding, cabinet or a reference to something that resembles a book,” says Renotière. Subtle, yet unique exhibition she started shouting: “Long live the book!”

Photo: Tereza Hrubá