On Tuesday morning we woke up early to catch the 6am train to Olomouc, a city in the eastern region of the Czech Republic known as Moravia. We spent two nights and days in Olomouc visiting the Museum of Art, the Archdiocesan Museum, and artist Vladimir Havlík’s studio, among other things.
Here we are leaving Prague in the early hours on Tuesday!
In Olomouc, we dropped our bags at our hotel and then made our way to the Olomouc Museum of Art.
On the way we saw King Wenceslas taking a selfie.
At the Museum of Art, we caught up with Deputy Director Gina Renotière, who told us about some of the programs and exhibitions at the museum, including the Central European Art Database (CEAD). CEAD is an online database which collects and maps out art made in Central Europe during the 20th century.
Then we made our way to a workspace in the museum to meet up with Renáta, who led us in a pamphlet-making workshop.
After the workshop, we spent some time looking at the museum’s sculpture collection titled “Volume of a Soul.”
From the description of the exhibition:
“The title and concept of the exhibition, which continues the long-standing cycle of presenting the museum‘s collections, are built on the link between object-subject relations. The volume speaks of one of the spatial characteristics of the sculpture, which we perceive as a physical quantity, while the soul, with its immaterial and ephemeral nature, brings to light what the work essentially shapes from within. Although it cannot be seen or measured, the work could not have been created without it.”
After a quick break for lunch, we then made our way to the studio of artist Vladimír Havlík.
Influenced by ideas of participatory art and action (or performance) art that emerged in the 1960s, many of Havlík’s artworks involve people, gestures, and real physical landscapes.
For Havlík and other participatory artists, the artwork is not a canvas or an object, but rather an event where people participate in a series of interactions and exchanges. During our visit, he showed us images that document some of the events he has organized over the years.
Here is Nate introducing Havlík.
After his presentation, Havlík invited us to participate in an action outside. The action involved a bowl of water and many hands.
The instruction was simple: move the water from a bowl at one end of the line to the potted plant at the other end of the line using only our hands.
Hands wet and potted plant watered (slightly), we called it a day.
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