As last year, all culture lovers in Olomouc can look forward to the Olomouc Museum Night, which will take place on 19 May as part of the nationwide Festival of Museum Nights, organised by the Association of Museums and Galleries of the Czech Republic from 19 May to 16 June. The collections of more than 50 institutions, such as museums, galleries, libraries, as well as some parts of Palacký University, interesting buildings and cemeteries, will be open to all visitors of Olomouc Museum Night long after normal opening hours. Participants have the opportunity to see the places in a completely new light.
Most importantly, however, the Telegraph cannot miss the occasion and will therefore offer visitors a rich programme on the evening in question. First and foremost, the Telegraph can invite contemporary artist David Pešat, who has been in residence at the Telegraph for several weeks as part of his residency. Not only will visitors be able to get a glimpse into the artist's studio during the so-called Open Studio from 6pm, but they will also be able to see an exhibition of his work, from before the residency, in the Telegraph Loft, the top floor of the building, which will be exceptionally open during the evening from 7pm.
David Pešat is a Prague-based artist whose paintings follow the modernist conception of the image in transforming its composition and formal expression. The artist reacts to the given starting point in his own way, reassessing, destroying and transforming it. He sensitively perceives the framework of experience that modern art has gone through to create the conditions for a free creative treatment of visuality itself (beyond manifestos and orthodox avant-garde proclamations). For Pešat, visuality is precisely a material intended for processing and transformation, a kind of "raw material" that can be transformed. Metamorphosis thus becomes a natural motif of thematization for him, and he often moves ambiguously between figuration and abstraction.
Telegraph Gallery will unfortunately be closed for this evening, as a new exhibition Topographies of Solitude featuring the work of Michal Škoda is busily in the works, which you will be able to admire from 26 May, with an opening reception on 25 May at 6pm.
The programme we have prepared for the Olomouc Museum Night does not end here. The exhibition will also be followed by the very first summer cinema of the year at the Telegraph. The Czech Lion award-winning documentary will be screened in the atrium area from 8:30pm. The film Art Exam will transport viewers to Prague's Academy of Fine Arts at the time of the entrance exams. In three different studios, the film follows the behind-the-scenes of the challenging task facing the teaching staff there. How to choose the right ones from the crowd of applicants who will be given the opportunity to shape the shape of fine arts in the years to come? How will the teachers themselves stand up to this test? The subject of the examination thus gradually becomes art itself and its place in the contemporary, so confusing world. There is a whole series of questions: for whom do we make art? Is it enough to do things the way we feel? Can anything offend us today? Murder or suicide? Bisexuality or pansexuality? Shit or blood? What does all this tell us about the nature and meaning of art today?
The entire programme of the Olomouc Museum Night at the Telegraph is free of charge for visitors.
