Arts | All stories

At the age of eighty Stanislav Kolibal is still active, testing new approaches and ideas. This year he has devoted himself to painting and his work is now on display in Prague's Veletrzni Palac, the part of the National Gallery devoted to modern art, until the middle of February. The watercolours on show are all in a shade of gray and represent trends in modern contemporary art. What might seem a random accumulation of squares, circles and rectangular shapes is in fact carefully composed to the very last detail.

Latest figures show that record sales by Czech artists this year have dropped by nearly 25% to 116 million CZK or 4.7 million USD. Given that this figure covers all revenues for scores of well established artists working in the Czech music industry, it is unlikely that any local musicians are going to make it big financially in this country regardless of how famous they are. In fact many feel such relatively poor sales pose a threat to the future viability of the music industry in the Czech Republic.

In the Arts we'll be looking at experimental vision in both music and architecture. First, we look at the Czech band known as SOIL, and second, we'll be looking at a new exhibition titled Futura Pragensis, where students of architecture foresee and propose how Prague might look in two hundred years.

The first Czech series of Pop Idol brought instant fame to Aneta Langerova. Now hugely popular among the younger generation and respected for the impression she gives of being a woman of principle, she has had the opportunity to perform with Czech musical legends. In short, a dream come true story for a girl who at the age of eighteen shook the Czech music scene to its foundations, proving that there is space for new talents.

Famufest, which was held in Prague last week, is the annual showcase of films made by students of the Film and TV School of Prague's Academy of Performing Arts, or FAMU as it's known. In the Arts this week, Radio Prague looks at the highlights of this year's festival and assesses the contuining importance of this school to Czech cinema.

The American writer Robert Fulghum, the author of such bestsellers as "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten" and "It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It" enjoys huge popularity among Czech readers and his books always rank very high on the list of bestsellers in this country. Robert Fulghum is now in the Czech Republic, promoting the Czech translation of the second part of his novel "Third Wish" - which is described by the Czech editor as a "pentalogy in three volumes".

In the Arts this week we visit two concerts and look at two rather different musical projects. The first one is an international guitar festival Guitar Across Styles. The second is a musical group, the Czech Chamber Ensemble which has a passion for Czech baroque music.

In the Arts this week, we look at the Music on Film - Film on Music festival or MOFFOM as it's known, which is now in its second year. This event is an innovative celebration of the special relationship between music and film.

100 Czech Design Icons is the title of a remarkable exhibition which has just got underway in Prague. It features an extremely broad range of Czech design classics, from a Cubist clock made by Josef Gocar in 1912 to colourful 1970s inflatable animals.

In this week's Arts, we look at two slightly offbeat classical music festivals: the wonderfully eclectic Strings of Autumn event, which is celebrating its tenth aniversary, and Prague's International Chamber Music Festival, which promotes an often-neglected side of classical music.