photo: Han Eunjee

 

On February 25, 2009 the Ambassador of the Czech Republic to the Republic of Korea, H.E. Mr. Jaroslav Olša, jr. opened an exhibition of 9 prize winners of “Jindřich Chalupecký Award” (www.jchalupecky.cz), Czech competition for young artists until the age of 35. Chung Hyung-min (director of the modern Museum of Art designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas), Jiří Ptáček (secretary of Jindřich Chalupecký Society and its trustee), and H.E. Mr. Jaroslav Olša, jr. (Ambassador of the Czech Republic to the Republic of Korea) made a speech on the opening ceremony. Moreover, Tomáš Vaněk, one of the prize winners, also participated in the opening ceremony and presented his “particips” and “sound statue”.

Around 100 visitors attended the opening ceremony that took place in the gallery of Seoul National University, most prestigious university in the Republic of Korea. With reference to the exhibition, an English-Korean catalogue was published. It contains CVs of the authors (namely David Černý, Barbora Klímová, Eva Koťátková, Radim Labuda, Ján Mančuška, Markéta Othová, Michal Pěchouček, Kateřina Šedá a Tomáš Vaněk) and photos of their art pieces. This exhibition, which is called „New Millenium. Minor Sensastions“, will be opened until May 2009.

In addition, two Korean daily newspapers reported on the opening – Hankook Ilbo and Seoul Gyungjae, where also pictures of David Černý’s statue appeared. Unsurprisingly, this statue caught the most public attention because the night before exhibition opening and shortly afterwards (when the statue had been hitched to the roof of SNUMoA), police was called due to suspicion that someone was about to commit suicide.

Finally, trustee Jiří Ptáček and author Tomáš Vaněk visited Daegu, fourth biggest city in the Republic of Korea since local university was interested in presentation of the exhibition after its termination in Seoul. Later on, they also visited the museum in Yongin which is devoted to the art and legacy of Paik Nam June, founder of the world videoart. They met local trustees and presented some pieces of art by current Czech artists.

 

Exhibition (l-r) - Chung Hyung-min (director of SNUMoA), Jiří Ptáček (secretary of Jindřich Chalupecký Society and trustee), and H.E. Mr. Jaroslav Olša, jr. (Ambassador of the Czech Republic to the Republic of Korea)

photo: Lee Heesook