The exhibition will celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the Municipal House and showcase famous works of modern art

Prague - This year's centenary of the founding of the Municipal House in Prague will be commemorated by an exhibition that will be opened to the public from Wednesday in this significant monument. The exhibition titled 1912 will showcase works by famous Czech artists that adorned the halls of the Art Nouveau building at the time of its opening. Visitors to the exhibition will also see documents mapping the cultural, social, and political life of the year 1912, as well as plans for the construction of the Municipal House by architects Antonín Balšánek and Osvald Polívka.
    The exhibition will present the history of the emergence of this national monument in its historical context. The focus is on the works of the artists who contributed to the decoration of the Municipal House, such as Alfons Mucha, Jan Preisler, Josef Wenig, Karel Špillar, Max Švabinský, and Ladislav Šaloun. Works by authors from the Sursum association (Jan Konůpek, Josef Váchal) and Czech cubists (Emil Filla, Otto Gutfreund, Josef Gočár) are also represented. They were presented here exactly one hundred years ago as part of the first exhibitions that marked the beginning of a series of significant exhibition events at the Municipal House. The works of these artists are now scattered throughout the Czech Republic, lent by two dozen public institutions and private owners.
    The paintings and sculptures are complemented by examples of applied art that carry the artistic handwriting of a hundred years ago. "The exhibition is not meant to represent just the origin of the history and architecture of the building, but to bring closer the visual mosaic of the year 1912 in broader cultural and socio-political contexts," said the curator of the exhibition Otto Urban. He also prepared a successful exhibition on Czech artistic symbolism and decadence for the Municipal House six years ago.
    However, that effectively closed the tradition of respected visual art exhibitions at the Municipal House, as Urban pointed out today. At that time, Prague made changes to its organization, and the city intended to make better use of the Municipal House. During that time, the Municipal House was profitable. A large part of the staff was laid off, and the exhibition department was dissolved.
    In the past four years, the Municipal House has faced multi-million losses. Since this spring, it has had new management that uncovered discrepancies in the company's finances. According to the director of the Municipal House, Vlastimil Ježek, the former heads of the company's administrative bodies will bear criminal responsibility.
    Ježek would like to re-establish the exhibition department; however, he has not done so yet due to the immediate plans. A temporary exhibition from the collections of the Museum of Decorative Arts should be set up in the Municipal House, which is awaiting reconstruction.
    Ježek, a former director of the National Library, also reminded that the competition for the construction of the Municipal House was accompanied by disputes and social debates; ultimately, it cost six million crowns instead of the budgeted three million. "Although it was a hundred years ago, not much has changed," he noted.
    The architectural solution for the exhibition marking the centenary of the founding of the Municipal House was prepared by the studio Olgoj Chorchoj; simultaneously with the opening of the exhibition, a catalog was published by Arbor vitae, which is not common for exhibitions in the Czech Republic today. The exhibition will be complemented by a series of lectures and tours with the curator, and a program for children is also prepared.