Vladimír Kokolia ends his teaching career at AVU after 33 years

Prague – Painter, musician, and writer Vladimír Kokolia is ending his teaching career at the Academy of Fine Arts (AVU) after 33 years, effective July 31, 2025, and is leaving public life. The sixty-eight-year-old artist wants to fully focus on his own work. On this occasion, AVU is organizing Kokolia Week from April 24 to 29 at its Prague headquarters. AVU representatives announced this to journalists today.

"The first event of Kokolia Week was the so-called Warming Thursday, followed by Unspeakable Friday, and today is the program for Warm Saturday organized by Kateřina Šedá under the name Kokoslet XXXIII as a gathering of students, graduates, and supporters of Graphics 2,” said AVU spokesperson Michaela Vrchotová.

The phenomenon of Graphics 2 was established 33 years ago at AVU in Prague and has been connected since its inception with Kokolia's name and specific approaches to creating and understanding images. Dozens of talents have passed through Graphics 2, imprinting their form on the contemporary art scene. Permanent characteristics of this studio include trust in drawing, perceiving one's own perspective, noticing the periphery, background, format, and the "reverse side" of the view or image.

During Rich Sunday, it will be possible to find out who is currently studying in the studio. The force responsible for the guidance of lines will be addressed on Thorough Monday, which will also focus on calligraphy. The final day, Proliferative Tuesday, will bring together philosopher Alice Koubová with the studios of Graphics 1 and Graphics 2 to discuss her challenge to think from a different place. All events are open to the public, except for today’s program, which is intended for media representatives and graduates of the studio.

Kokolia studied at the Secondary School of Applied Arts in Uherské Hradiště, specializing in promotional graphics, and then painting at AVU. He lives and works alternately in Veverské Knínice near Brno and in Prague. He has organized over 100 solo exhibitions and participated in more than four hundred group exhibitions in the Czech Republic and abroad. From 1984 to 1997, he was the singer of the Brno band E, which was once at the forefront of Czech alternative and underground music.

In 1990, Kokolia became the first laureate of the Jindřich Chalupecký Award. In 2013, he unsuccessfully ran for the rectorship of AVU and also served as the vice-rector for academic affairs. "After school, people are thrown into a world that usually does not care about the subtle shifts in their opinion spectrum. On one hand, this is usually extremely healthy for them, but from another perspective, it is a terrible waste of all that has been given to them by nature and by school. The school should probably not lose sight of them even after graduation. We try to do this a bit, but I have not yet figured out whether there is a more effective way," he stated some time ago.