The Exhibition as Medium*

The exhibition is a space-time in which various power relations and interests operate, a field in which a shift takes place of not only cultural values, but strategies also. One might draw on the terminology of Pierre Bourdieu and speak of a field of cultural production, creating a social space, and economic and cultural capital. According to Bourdieu, the cultural field is made up of interconnected people and activities that create the world of art, believe in its values, and contend for its symbolic capital. In this respect the exhibition, like a book, is a powerful tool of transformation in the time zone of the art field. However, in itself it is passive and stands at the center of complex relations between artists, curators, critics, political ideologues, bureaucrats, economists and viewers. As such, it represents a historically conditioned format for the presentation of art that creates a special context for encounters with artworks. It is an autonomous form of cultural production that serves to promote and legitimize certain forms of art.

This essay, presenting the primary typological forms of the medium of exhibition during the communist period of 1948−1989 in Czechoslovakia, is accompanied by 13 carefully selected exhibition projects. They represent marked types of innovative approaches to the medium of exhibition during the cultural dictat. They attest to both the needs of the artists to communicate their work through an exhibition even under the most complex conditions, but also the imaginativeness with which they approached the medium itself and circumvented official rules.

The basic institutional framework of post-war cultural operations in Czechoslovakia was established in 1948; the following Stalinist period was critical for the Czech culture. The gallery operations were centrally organized via the Union of Czechoslovak Fine Artists (Svaz československých výtvarných umělcům). This organization controlled all the facets of the art scene; it managed gallery spaces, published official art magazines, distributed commissions and scholarships, and also controlled the network of art supplies stores and, obviously, the regulated art market. The development of this organization largely determined the possibilities of exhibiting. The state-run gallery system was dominated by a kind of ideological exhibition model. The paradigm comprised nationwide shows at which juries selected from the works submitted those that corresponded to a period’s ideas of what was “proper” art worthy of and suitable for presentation.

The choice of works was based on controlled collective decision making; the exhibition juries included not only theorists and artists, representatives of major state institutions, communist party representatives and key ideologues, but also representatives of the working class and people. Notions about ideal works of socialist realism evolved over time depending on many factors, but the exhibitions themselves maintained a traditional salon format. Paintings and sculptures were installed at small intervals on the walls and panels of exhibition halls, works were arranged and hierarchized according to discipline (monumental painting and sculpture received pride of place). These exhibitions were also accompanied by ritualized social attention focused on ideological enlightenment. During the 1950s, culture was judged on the basis of ideological criteria and terminology of a planned economy. During this period solo exhibitions of contemporary art almost disappeared.

It was not until the latter half of the 1950s that the Union allowed art groups to be formed after their general cancellation in 1948. This was the beginning of a revival of Czech (more specifically Czechoslovak) art after the period of imposed socialist realism, when the possibility of exhibiting expanded significantly. The late 1950s and early 60s saw an attempt to promote modern forms of expression even within the framework of official structures, though these efforts were often complicated by obstacles and interdictions. Despite this, the collective exhibitions picked up pace, thus disturbing the ideological exhibition model. These events took place in smaller exhibition halls linked to the Union and, unlike the nationwide shows, were not intended for the general public, but rather for the art community. They became a tool redefining the relationship of official culture to dismissed modern art that, nevertheless, was strongly rooted in Czech culture from the period prior to the Second World War.

However, at the turn of the 1950s/60s, many exhibitions took place in unofficial spaces, in which room was found for manifestations of modern art otherwise still prohibited – such as surrealism and abstraction. Due to the need for secrecy, studio exhibitions were particularly popular. These might consist of an individual presentation of an artist’s work or a group confrontation. A great example is represented by series of studio exhibitions called Confrontations (Konfrontace, 1960), which were prepared by a group of young Czech artists devoted to informel abstract painting. If we look at the form they took, it is clear that, under the makeshift conditions of a studio, the endeavor was to make the exhibition format resemble as much as possible that of gallery’s. The cooperative, self-financed background of these exhibitions cannot eclipse the seriousness with which they were organized and accepted by a small circle of visitors. The banned exhibition occupies a special place during this period, since many events, especially during the 1950s and later the 1970s, simply never took place, or could not be visited by the public. For various reasons they ran afoul of the censorship of that time. We can reconstruct these exhibitions thanks to invitations, catalogues whose distribution was banned, rare photo-documentation and later the testimony of their curators. One such example is the exhibition Imaginative Painting 1930-1950 (Imaginativní malířství 1930-1950, 1964) that was installed at the Aleš South Bohemian Gallery in the town of Hluboká nad Vltavou but never opened to the public.

At the end of 1964, new leadership was elected in the Union of Czechoslovak Fine Artists allowing for the transformation of the gallery structure, which, alongside the gradual liberalization of society, was behind the unprecedented flourishing of Czech fine art during the latter half of the 1960s. This period is characterized by the first more strenuous efforts to conceptualize the exhibition as a medium, experimentation in the sphere of installation, and the profiling of galleries and curators. It does not end in 1968, when the hopes raised by the Prague Spring were dashed by the invasion of the forces of the Warsaw Pact, but in 1970, when many figures had to leave public life and the quality of the exhibition programs in key institutions visibly suffered. However, during the second half of the 1960s, exhibition practices developed to a greater extent and the official and unofficial scene virtually merged. Between 1965 and 1969, an almost ideal cultural model functioned in Czechoslovakia. Individual galleries were administered by the state, which, through the Czech Fine Art Fund (Český fond výtvarného umění), oversaw and financed their operations. The program of events was put together by specific commissioners, along with gallery boards appointed by the Union, which did not, however, censor their work (see e.g. Marcel Duchamp’s exhibition, 1969). A feature new to this period was the experimental exhibition, which interrogated the very medium of the exhibition. Under the influence of the conceptualization of art and the development of intermedial approaches, the traditional idea of an exhibition as the presentation of isolated artefacts was subject to disruption. See e. g. Exhibition of Street Reality (Výstava skutečností ulice, 1966) by Robert Wittmann or Somewhere Something (Někde něco, 1969) by Jiří Kolář, Běla Kolářová, Zorka Ságlová and Jan Ságl, or An Eight-Hour Exhibition and Its Reconstruction(Osmihodinová výstava a její rekonstrukce, 1970) by Dalibor Chatrný or Footprints (Stopy, 1970) by Eva Kmentová. Exhibition installation took on a more complex form, in which the overall aesthetic impression of the whole was deemed more important than its individual parts.

A radical turnaround in gallery operations took place in the 1970s when the new political garniture took power and, as part of the “normalization” process in which the liberalization period of the 1960s was interpreted as counter-revolutionary, a new cultural order was set resembling that of 1950s hard-line communism.

The program of individual galleries was once again centralized and many galleries closed down. Following the reorganization of the Union, which saw a limited percentage of artists permitted to join the newly formed Union of Czech Fine Artists, the art scene was again divided into the official and unofficial. In the spirit of returning to the 1950s, the officials opted to return to the ideological exhibition model. The principle of these exhibitions was a ritualized adherence to the normalization regime and the preservation of the status quo, thus in principle suppressing any innovation. For members of the unofficial scene, denied access to the gallery infrastructure, the 1970s involved an ongoing search for alternative presentational formats, which saw theatre vestibules, research institutes, the foyers of houses of culture, etc. being co-opted as galleries. These “provisional solutions” enjoyed unprecedented significance, both in terms of community and culture, and expanded the boundaries of the medium of the exhibition in many directions. Exhibitions arose spontaneously, initiated by groups of courageous artists or theoreticians and organized with huge commitment in often bizarre places. They were often of an improvised character, with the organizers’ curatorial work consisting mainly in finding space and contacting kindred artists, who would then install their work or create them in situ. Nevertheless, this type of exhibition was important both in terms of a feeling of belonging to an independent art scene, and as a demonstration of an alternative to official art. This context prevailed over the need to formulate clearly specific themes for an exhibition or define its format as an independent medium. In light of the particular circumstances involved in exhibiting in nature, these were often site-specific exhibitions. Great examples of this effort are exhibitions as the A Meeting on TJ Sparta Tennis Courts (Setkání na tenisových dvorcích TJ Sparta, 1982) or the Hop-field Symposium in Mutějovice (Chmelnice – Mutějovice, 1983).

Another unique type of exhibition during this period was the apartment exhibition, characterized by the absence of a neutral space respecting the autonomy of the artwork, one such was Karel Miler’s apartment exhibition in 1977. During the 1970s and 1980s a large number of artists who still command respect to this day resorted to this exhibition format. Even so, this was a provisional solution that disappeared from the scene with the development of other possibilities of exhibiting. A similarly unique exhibition format deployed by the art community to confront repression was the portable exhibition. This might be, for instance, an album or miniature boxes that formed a unique mini-exhibition, see e.g. Minisalon (1984−1989). Despite these alternative exhibition formats, artists continued to yearn for a pure gallery space unencumbered by other associations. This resulted in secret exhibitions held in gallery institutions, like the one Jiří Kovanda enabled in the National Gallery in Prague in 1985. The exhibitors would install their works in the white gallery space during the period between exhibitions when it was empty. They would subversively leech off official institutions and avail themselves of a gallery employee sympathetic to their cause who would help them, as far as they were able, to organize an inconspicuous visit by other viewers. The photo-documentation from these secret exhibitions testifies to the artists’ desire to see and photograph their own work within a pristine gallery setting, for all this might be a fleeting moment inaccessible to the public. From today’s point of view, this is one of the most original exhibition formats during the period under examination (see e.g. A White Space in a White Space, 1973−1974 or Secret Exhibition in the Municipal Library, 1985).

Even during the 1980s, exhibiting in a traditional gallery institution was a privilege enjoyed only by official artists, members of the newly established Union of Czech Fine Artists. The others were grateful for any opportunity to exhibit, a fact that paradoxically confirms how important the medium of the exhibition is. It is only via the exhibition that the artwork enters into the space of the world of art, confronts other works, and initiatives a dialogue with its viewers. The young postmodern generation were relatively unbothered by these unusual conditions, which were simply part of their cultural reality (see e. g. Margita Titlová Ylovsky’s Exhibition in the Fire-damaged Trade Fair Palace, 1985). In addition, their work resonated well within a non-gallery environment, such as studios, countryside homesteads or peripheral cultural centers. From the mid-1980s, as a consequence of the restructuring and lifting of censorship, it was possible to organize even large events without the subsequent criminalization of participants. These exhibitions continued to be organized purely on the initiative of individuals, without a curator, and with minimal facilities and publicity, they used private and marginal state-run premises, but were viewed as unofficial events.

In the latter half of the 1980s the first private galleries were finally established and the official exhibition policy relaxed. Official galleries gradually expanded their programs, and previously banned artist and art were increasingly included in exhibitions. The official and unofficial scenes were becoming intertwined and merging into a confusing tangle of “grey zones”, constantly strained by unpredictable censorship interventions (see e. g. Tomáš Ruller 8. 8. 88, 1988). The Velvet Revolution in 1989 became a major political turning point and a new beginning for Czech art and its exhibition practices. Throughout the period under review, the organic process of the transformation of the medium of the exhibition reacted not only to the development of art forms, but also to the ever-evolving political and social situation. The role of the exhibition changed in relation to society. During the whole period of state socialism it had been an instrument of propaganda, a means of promoting the political and cultural objectives of the ruling power. In more liberal periods, like in 1960s, it was the vehicle for new creative approaches, even while serving to codify period interpretations of art history. However, throughout the whole second half of the 20^th century it represented space for discussion amongst the art community. It did not really matter whether it took the form of an apartment exhibition, studio confrontation or gallery retrospective. Nevertheless, the exhibition remains above all a cultural tool for the communication of currently recognized artistic values.