outside the gallery! Art in Czech public space after 1989 [cz-en]

Public space and art have one common objective – they serve communication. The city provides a public space for physical movement, walking, and transport, but also for meeting and establishing social contacts, it is a place of expressed and tacit communication between people. Artworks displayed in the open air play an important role in shaping this public space of communication. They address passing viewers, recall a common past of the community and thus reinforce the identity of the place, or, on the contrary, stimulate public debate with provocative new topics.  But they communicate not only with the people but also with the surrounding buildings and the physical space of the city, which they give important accents to, raising its aesthetic level.

These two roles of artworks in public space are the axis of this project. We were curious how artworks bring themes of public interest into the public space and how they complete the physical face of the city, whether in the form of permanent objects, temporary artistic interventions, outdoor galleries, or sculpture festivals. In 4 sections more than 60 artworks created after 1989 are presented, a short historical introduction recalls the earlier period from the 1960s onwards. The essays in this catalogue then reflect on the subject from different perspectives – in terms of the meaning and role of artworks in public space, the various forms of artistic interventions, historical developments and the situation in selected cities and landscapes.

Matej Al-Ali, Ateliér SAD, Tomáš Beneš, David Böhm & Jiří Franta, Eugen Brikcius, Ondřej Císler, Lubomír Čermák, David Černý, Jiří David, Federico Díaz, Lea Dostálová, Petr Dub, ellement architects, Epos 257, Festival Kukačka, Festival m³ – Umění v prostoru, Festival nahých forem, Václav Fiala, Vojtěch Fröhlich, Vladislav Gajda, Kurt Gebauer, Galerie Artwall, Guma Guar, Miloslav Sonny Halas, Radim Hanke, Lukáš Houdek, Dalibor Chatrný, Miloslav Chlupáč, Magdalena Jetelová, Miroslav Jirava, Pavla Voborník Kačírková, Čestmír Kafka, Ivan Kafka, Marian Karel, Krištof Kintera, Lenka Klodová, Eva Kmentová, Milan Knížák, Marius Kotrba, Jiří Kovanda, Kuba & Pilař architekti, Dominik Lang, Landscape festival, Milan Mikuláštík, Tomáš Moravec, Jakub Nepraš, Karel Nepraš, Jiří Novák, Vratislav Karel Novák, Libor Novotný, Ivar Otruba, Performance Festival Malamut, Petr Pištěk, ProLuka, Jiří Příhoda, Rafani, Karel Rechlík, Lukáš Rittstein, Jaroslav Róna, Viktor Rudiš, Tomáš & Ivan Rullerové, Zorka Ságlová, Pavla Sceranková, Signal festival, Skupina Ládví, Sochy v ulicích – Brno Art Open, Sporadical, Jan a Petr Stolínové, Čestmír Suška, Zdeněk Sýkora, Kateřina Šedá, Miloš Šejn, Jan Šépka, Šrámková architekti, Ivana Šrámková, Dagmar Šubrtová, Benedikt Tolar, Maxim Velčovský, Aleš Veselý, Margita Titlová Ylovsky, Dušan Zahoranský, Olbram Zoubek, Václav Zůna, Ztohoven