The NG exhibitions will commemorate the 40th anniversary of the fire at the Trade Fair Palace

Prague - Trade Fair Palace will commemorate the anniversary of the devastating fire 40 years ago this year. To mark this event, the National Gallery (NG) will launch a series of three exhibitions in March under the common title The Story of the Trade Fair Palace: 1928, 1974, 2014. The first exhibition The Story of the Trade Fair Palace will draw from rich photographic documentation covering the period from 1924, when an architectural competition was announced, to the present day. Today, the director of the Collections of Modern and Contemporary Art at NG Helena Musilová informed ČTK about this.
    "The series of events aims to show the Trade Fair Palace as a building, a certain central exhibit of the collections of modern contemporary art, as well as a place where key projects take place for us. We want to demonstrate how this building limits these projects or how it can elevate them, and how the building is worked with internally," Musilová told ČTK.
    NG is preparing several roundtables and conferences, and architect Miroslav Masák, who participated in the reconstruction of the burned Trade Fair Palace, will also have a space.
    The second exhibition will focus directly on the dramatic fire itself starting on August 14. The organizers plan to invite witnesses who photographed the six-day fire to collaborate. The last exhibition will take place from mid-October and will showcase large-format paintings and various objects by Jiří Sozanský, for whom the events surrounding the Trade Fair Palace are a significant symbol.
   

source: NAČR

The Trade Fair Palace was originally intended for hosting fairs, later serving as the headquarters for foreign trade enterprises. On August 14, 1974, it was nearly destroyed by a massive fire, which was extinguished by August 20. The damage caused by the largest fire in modern Prague history was estimated at 224 million crowns. There were considerations about demolishing the building, but in 1976 it was decided to reconstruct it. That same year, the National Gallery in Prague acquired the building. It was completely reconstructed only in the 1990s.
    In 2014, NG will open several new exhibitions and continue presenting permanent exhibits. For example, the exhibition of the French collections celebrates its 90th anniversary since its inception at the turn of last year and this year. The curatorial and educational team has prepared a series of lectures and guided tours in the Trade Fair Palace for this occasion.
    For the Year of Music 2014, the gallery prepared the exhibition Vivat musica!, which will showcase how the relationship between music and visual arts has evolved over more than five centuries. The exhibition will feature works by J. V. Myslbek, J. Mánes, E. Filla, F. Kupka, G. Braque, and P. Picasso. At the Salm Palace, there will be an exhibition starting in May about the influence of japonisme on Czech art, and the autumn will belong to the extensive project Open the Heavenly Garden: Benedictines in the Heart of Europe 800 - 1300 at the Wallenstein Riding School.
    In addition to the exhibitions, two permanent exhibits will be opened this year: in spring, the permanent exhibit of the Collection of Oriental Art will be reopened at Kinský Palace and in autumn, a ceremonial opening of the 19th-century art exhibition is being prepared at Salm Palace in Prague Castle. The end of the year will be marked by the 25th anniversary of the Jindřich Chalupecký Award, and the pre-Christmas period will be enriched by an exhibition with a working title Brothers Čapek for Children at the Trade Fair Palace.