Arts | All stories

In this week’s Arts I talk to Jitka Hanušová of Art for People, collaborating on an upcoming exhibition at the GASK Gallery in Kutná Hora, central Bohemia. The show, entitled “Venice - the Eternal Dream”, opens next week, featuring work by Italian photographer Maria Pia Severi and Venetian Carnevale masks from the traditional Pietro Longhi atelier.

In this week’s Arts my guest is New York-based landscape architect Martin Barry who last year launched a new festival and conference in Prague called reSITE, focussing on urbanism and rethinking the public space. To this aim, he and organisers involved everyone from internationally recognised designers and urban planners, to students of arts and architecture, and last, but not least, politicians.

Nika Kupyrova has traversed Europe from East to West and back. Born in Ukraine and having grown up in Prague, she went on to study art in Edinburgh and Iceland. Now Nika lives and works in Vienna, and partly in Prague, creating installations and photographs of dream-like creatures and spaces. Currently, the young artist has an installation at the Windows Gallery in Vienna - the new art space of the Czech Center in Austria.

This week we have a roundup of cultural stories making headlines: an exhibition dedicated to Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamen, a new musical inspired by the rock band Lucie, and the completion of the AZ Tower - the country's tallest building.

An exhibition called Signals from the Unknown is on now at the DOX Gallery in Prague, allowing visitors to learn about the fascinating history of Czech comics – from the year 1922 to the present.

The Febiofest film festival, in its 20th year, began on Thursday evening; this year the festival promises 200 film screenings and the attendance of internationally-recognised stars like Geraldine Chaplin (perhaps best known for her work with Carlos Saura) and Giancarlo Giannini many fans will recognise from films like Casino Royale.

South Korea’s National Museum of Contemporary Art is currently putting on a large-scale showcase of Czech modern art. The exhibit 'Memory of Landscape I have never seen’ is a result of three years of collaboration between Prague and Seoul and presents works of Czech painters from the Czech National Gallery, ranging from 1895 until 1943. I spoke to the National Gallery’s director Vladimir Rösel and asked him how the cooperation with the Korean museum developed.

In this week’s Arts, my guest is Welsh writer James Stafford, the author of a wonderfully irreverent new webcomic The Sorrowful Putto of Prague. The comic tells the story of a 400-year-old putto (or cherub) named Xavier living in the city and it has captured the attention of both Czech and English-language readers. After looking up the site myself, I was curious to learn more about Xavier and his world. Luckily James Stafford – who is not usually based in Prague – was able to come to the studio to discuss the project.

The Semafor theatre, one of the oldest continuous traditions of modern Czech entertainment, is still putting out new performances after 53 years of existence. The latest concoction of multi-genre comedy theatre is ‘Kam se poděla Valerie?’, or ‘Where Did Valerie Go?’, which has four pre-premieres this week and next, before the real premiere in September.

Tim Smisek is an American singer and songwriter living in Prague. He regularly performs at Restaurant Anna and various other venues in the Czech capital. For this week’s edition of the Arts Tim visited Radio Prague’s studio to talk about his music, plans for the future and work on a new album. Lorna Stephen began by asking him how he came to live in Prague.