PRAGUE BIENNALE 2
PRAGUE BIENNALE
is the one and only PRAGUE BIENNALE
The first edition of
For this second edition, since the very
beginning we have excluded the possibility of working with a
person who is unprofessional and basically unscrupulous, such as
Milan Knizak, who uses the Prague National Gallery as his own
personal feud (and where he has created, as if he was a great
protagonist of the art scene, close to Beuys, a room of his own).
For those who live outside the
The
An all round man of power indeed. Power
which in a short while made him forget his past as an arsonist
and made him become a fierce and implacable enemy of every form
of new and progressive/avant-garde art. He bitterly fights and
boycotts all the young artists from
Consequently it would have been impossible
to even consider working together on PRAGUE BIENNALE 2,
which was conceived, promoted, financed, created (thanks to the
enlightened sponsor Mattoni) and brought to success despite the
continual ill-treatment and boycotting that Mr. Knizak subjected
us to in 2003. Reluctantly and only to take away our ideas and
possible advantages, he gave us hospitality in his National
Gallery (sending us also the bill for the postage stamps for the
invitations that we had printed ourselves and brought to Prague,
as well as the electricity bill at the end of the exhibition!).
And we, being people who like to work
calmly and without traumas (the work and stress are tiring enough
without additional trauma from internal battles) tried to find a
venue for the new edition of PRAGUE BIENNALE that was not the
National Gallery, having to face substantial stress and costs
that reduced our already limited budget.
But do you know what happened?
Dear old Milan Knizak, who for decades has never done a thing,
who in his National Gallery never hosted an exhibition of
contemporary art apart from the routine ones passed on to him by
local cultural institutes (for example recently: an exhibition of
Chinese watercolors) as a response to our unwillingness to work
with him anymore, suddenly decided to organize a PRAGUE BIENNALE
of his own, knowing perfectly well that the idea behind the
biennale and name belonged to us. But it does not end there:
seeing his total incompetence and that of his staff, apart from
wanting to name the exhibition
Milan Knizak's group show will have to change its name shortly
Despite continual requests from
our lawyer and injunctions of the Prague Court of Justice that
invite him to change the name of the event (our copyright on the
brand does not allow someone else to associate the name of Prague
with an international art biennale), confident of his backing
from politicians coupled with his arrogance, he continues
unabatedly to call a most ordinary and disassembled group show
the "Prague International Biennale," thus wrongly
inducing curators, artists and members of the public who think
that they are taking part in our Prague Biennale whereas in
reality they are taking part in a simple group show that will
shortly have to change its name. Those who have been invited to
take part in
In the light of the hundreds of letters of
explanation that we receive from curators and artists who have
been invited by Knizak who thought they were going to be taking
part in our Biennale, we felt it our duty to clarify our position
with regard to this ambiguity. For this reason we are telling
everyone that PRAGUE BIENNALE IS THE ONE AND ONLY PRAGUE BIENNALE
and will be held from the 26th May at the venue of Karlin
Hall (Thamova 8-14) where we shall be waiting for you
all to see together the most grandiose and interesting exhibition
in Central Europe. The other exhibition at the National Gallery
is merely a group show, a caravan of artists and curators that
act as testimony of
Please visit the