At the age of 86, the artist and former director of the National Gallery, Milan Knížák, has died

Prague – The artist and musician Milan Knížák has passed away, former rector of the Prague Academy of Fine Arts (AVU) and former director of the National Gallery (NG). He was 86 years old. The news was confirmed today by Foreign Minister Petr Macinka, a former associate of ex-president Václav Klaus, with whom Knížák was friends. Minister of Culture Oto Klempíř (for Motorists) stated on the X network that Knížák died this morning. Knížák was among the creators who significantly influenced the Czechoslovak and Czech art scene. His artistic activities encompassed visual art, music, architecture, design, fashion, poetry, and photography.

Knížák was at the birth of the Czech underground; after the regime change, he served as the rector of AVU and led the National Gallery for several years. He often expressed critical and controversial opinions on social developments in the country and attempted to assert himself in politics. He was known as a supporter of former President Klaus and the ODS, for which he unsuccessfully ran for the Senate in 1998.

Knížák came to wider public attention while managing the National Gallery, from 1999 to 2011. His tenure was marked by achievements as well as conflicts. He managed to balance the gallery's budget, helped to address the consequences of the 2002 floods, and expanded the gallery's spaces. However, part of the professional public criticized his management style at NG. Complaints included a reduction in exhibition activities, authoritarian management, alleged favoritism towards certain artists, and insufficient cooperation with abroad. His dispute with the later head of NG, Jiří Fajt, ended up in court. In 2018, the Constitutional Court rejected Knížák's appeal against a ruling which previously required him to apologize for claiming that Fajt had ruined NG in the past.

Knížák earned praise for his tenure as rector of AVU. He was elected to head the school by acclamation in 1990 and remained in the position until January 1997. He brought new impulses to the academy and opened it up to the world. He also led the Studio of Intermedia Creation, which he founded, for 25 years. His students included Krištof Kintera, Jakub Špaňhel, Milena Dopitová, and Milan Mikuláštík. However, in 2015, Knížák was unsuccessful in a competition for the position of head of the studio, which caused an uproar among his students.

Knížák was born on April 19, 1940, in Plzeň. He studied at the Higher Pedagogical School, at AVU, and at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of Charles University, but did not complete his studies. He completed his doctoral studies at AVU from 1997 to 1998. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Knížák was known as the founder of the Aktual Club and the eponymous beat group, which is considered one of the most significant underground bands of the communist regime.

From 1968 to 1969, he lectured at two universities in the USA. He was also a supporter of the international movement of Fluxus artists, participating in its actions especially during his stay in the USA, which emerged from the principles of Dadaism, where the artist’s opinion or stance was more important than a traditional exhibition. Preferred mediums included actions, happenings, installations, performances, objects, music, sound, smell, visual representation, or simply experience. Until 1970, Knížák held various temporary jobs, and then worked as an independent artist. In the 1980s, he again lectured abroad, in Hamburg and Salzburg. During normalization, he was harassed by the police, detained several times, and repeatedly imprisoned as a "enemy of the state".

Knížák exhibited in the Czech Republic, Europe, the USA, Japan, Canada, and Australia. His work is represented in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the British Tate Gallery, the French Centre Pompidou, and other institutions. He is the author of poems, having published dozens of books, catalogs, and music recordings. As a collector of puppets, he authored the Encyclopedia of Puppetry Artists in the Czech Lands and Slovakia. For his work, he received numerous awards, including the Medal of Merit in 2010.