Karlin Studios will not go to the market; they do not have a new location

Prague - The Prague magistrate has canceled the loan of one of the halls in the Holešovice market to the company Karlín Studios, which the city council decided on at the beginning of this year. The gallery and studios of the studio are located in former factory halls in Karlín, which belong to a developer. After ten years of artistic operation, the developer wants to demolish the buildings and construct new ones in their place. Despite an agreement with the city, the studios with a rich tradition have been without space since autumn. A petition supporting the studios has been signed by over 900 people.

On Friday, several exhibitions will open at the old headquarters of Karlín Studios. The one titled Bureaucratic Language will also feature its protagonist, Russian performer Petr Pavlensky. His most famous act is Fixation (2013), during which he nailed his genitals to the pavement of Moscow's Red Square to protest against the transformation of Russia into a police state. In November 2015, he set fire to the entrance of the headquarters of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). For this act, aimed at protesting against the detention of Ukrainians in Russia, he was in prison until June. This Karlín Studios project is his first exhibition after his release. However, the court imposed a fine of half a million rubles on him, in addition to which he must pay damages of almost the same amount (a total of about CZK 370,000).

Karlín Studios have been negotiating with Prague for alternative spaces for almost two years. "Even though a rental contract was already prepared, the leadership of Prague suddenly completely changed course in mid-May," state the founders of the studio on their website. "The city's property committee approved the rental of the building to OSE Czech Republic and the Signal festival on June 21," it says on the website.

The magistrate says that the organization Containall has been interested in the hall since last year, intending to establish a multifunctional cultural center there. However, after the city council approved the loan, a representative of the company refused to sign the contract due to the technical condition of the hall, said magistrate spokesperson Vít Hofman to ČTK. "At that moment, the Karlin Studios association entered the communication, demanding a change to the contract so that both organizations, Containall and Karlin Studios, were represented," the spokesperson stated. However, according to him, the city council will still decide on further steps regarding the rental of the building.

However, Michal Novotný, the curator of Karlín Studios, told ČTK today that both associations stood together from the outset on the request. "It is not entirely true that Containall did not want to take over the hall. In addition, we offered not only to take it over but also to repair the roof at our own expense, which is in a state of emergency," he stated. He claims that he can provide evidence of a year-long communication with the city.

Currently, Karlín Studios must vacate their premises by the end of September and hand them over to the owner. Three months before the planned relocation, Karlín Studios, along with about twenty resident artists, including prominent Czech painters Josef Bolf and Daniel Pitín, as well as faculty members from UMPRUM and FAMU, found themselves without space.

Karlín Studios were founded in 2005 by Italian architect and entrepreneur Albert Di Stefano in collaboration with visual artist Jiří David as the first post-industrial space in Prague, which combined exhibition spaces with studios and a place for residency stays. MeetFactory, Trafačka, or Orco at Vltavská emerged later. The owner of the building where Karlín Studios is located, company M2, plans to expand the Corso office complex.