Tschechisches Zentrum Berlin Tschechisches Zentrum Berlin

This episode of the CCAiB podcast features Anna Kubelík, a multimedia artist. Trained as an architect, Anna Kubelík has shifted her practice into art that works with space using any medium needed to create contextualized projects. Most of her projects are generated in transdisciplinary processes with other artists or scientists.

After creating numerous performative objects and installations in the last decades she is currently creating new bodies of works related to her family history connected to the czech-suisse conductor Rafael Kubelík, musical and scientific instruments, and reinvented architectures.

Anna Kubelík is a professor of “artistic experimental design” at the architecture faculty in Constance, Germany, and holds the position of principal investigator at the Cluster of Excellence “Matters of Activity”, which enables her to act as a curator between artistic practices and science.

Contemporary Czech Art in Berlin (CCAiB) aims to systematically map, render visible, interconnect, and expand the existing networks of artists and curators with Czech-German backgrounds. This project is built upon three key pillars: an online podcast, studio visits, and networking events. The podcast's essence lies in crafting a timeless online database that not only spotlights individual positions but also portrays a nuanced web of relationships by charting the Czech art scene within the context of its ties to the German art scene. Through this approach, we offer an overview of the breadth of connections and also archive individual positions, potentially enhancing the prospects for future collaborations.

This episode of CCAiB delves into the world of contemporary art and cultural initiatives with a Czech-German background, focusing on the current exhibition Hours Against the Clock in KVOST (Kunstverein Ost e. V.). Our today’s guests are Světlana Malinová and Marija Petrović.

Světlana Malinová (*1997, Czech Republic) is a Prague-based curator and cultural producer. Since 2022, she has served as the artistic director of the Fotograf Festival and co-manages the City Surfer Office, a multifunctional art space in Prague's Žižkov district. She is the curator of the current exhibition Hours Against the Clock in KVOST.

Marija Petrovic (*1992, Dnipro, Ukraine) is an artist, researcher, and curator based in Berlin. She's currently pursuing her Ph.D. project "Vulnerability" at HFBK, supported by the Ernst-Ludwig Ehrlich Foundation. Marija's work explores human interaction and memory complexities. She's a member of the curatorial team at KVOST, promoting contemporary art from Central- and Eastern Europe.

The exhibition Hours Against the Clock offers a glimpse into the minds of two generations of Czech and Slovak artists and reflects a shared Czechoslovak historical experience that spills over into the present. Collective traumas and family memories are written into the visual images. It features the artworks of Jan Durina, Alena Kotzmannová, and Milan Mazúr.

Am 28.03.2023 war die tschechische Autorin Anna Bolavá in unserer Reihe „Tschechien erlesen“ zu Gast in der Ingeborg-Drewitz-Bibliothek in Berlin-Steglitz. Sie stellte ihr Romandebüt „Der Duft der Dunkelheit“ vor, in dem sie die Leserinnen und Leser in eine südböhmische Kleinstadt mitten in der Natur entführt, in der es unter der Oberfläche des Alltags unheilvoll brodelt. Aus der deutschen Übersetzung las Julie Adam, es moderierte Christina Frankenberg.

For this edition, we visited the Kestnergesellschaft in Hanover to meet Klára Hosnedlová. In collaboration with the Kestner Gesellschaft, she prepared her first institutional solo exhibition 'To Infinity'. Let’s introduce you to her work.

Klára Hosnedlová was born in the Czech Republic and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague and at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Brno. She lives and works in Berlin. Her work combines craft, fashion, design, architecture, sculpture and performance. She uses these tools to create immersive environments that explore the uncertainties of the post-industrial world. Her work has been shown in numerous group and solo exhibitions, including X Museum, Beijing (2022), at the Art Basel Parcours, Basel (2021) or at the Baltic Triennial 14: The Endless Frontier, Vilnius (2021).

The exhibition To Infinity at the Kestner Gesellschaft is her first institutional solo show and has become the Kestner Gesellschaft's most ambitious project for the season. We spoke to the artist herself, the in-house curator Alexander Wilmschen and the director of the Kestner Gesellschaft Adam Budak about the show.

In this episode of our Contemporary Czech Art in Berlin series, we present the artist Daniel Vlček, whose works were part of the exhibition Deep Rivers Run Quiet at the Czech Center Berlin in autumn 2022.

Daniel Vlček (*1978), painter and musician, focuses in his work mainly on the connection between sound and his own visual expression, mainly with the help of science, living organisms or modern technologies. He visualizes the recording of sound, vibrations and their propagation in space in subjective patterns, with the resulting shapes often resembling technical drawings of sound waves.

In this issue of Contemporary Czech Art we will introduce you to the multimedia artist Petra Janda. Her artworks are part of our current exhibition Deep rivers run quiet.

She studied sculpture and intermedia at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. She moves across the spectrum of creation, education and awareness, but all activities are related to the relationship of man to environmental issues, sustainable development of the surrounding world and improvement of the environment both external and internal - psychological. Her work responds to contemporary life in its openness, uncertainty, fragility and mystery, and presents a narrative of life, including community projects, activism, but also ancient myths and inner spirituality. Petra founded the web platform Artbiom.cz and the AVU ecobox. At the moment you can see some of her works at the exhibition Deep rivers run quiet which is held in the gallery of Czech centre in Berlin and you can visit it until the 17th of December.