Arts | All stories

Exactly 20 years ago, during the Velvet Revolution, the country was flooded with posters, both home-produced and professionally printed, calling for change. They bore slogans like Free Elections, Teacher You Don’t Have to Lie to Us Anymore, and Havel to the Castle. Now many of those posters have been gathered in a fascinating new book.

Za Svobodu! – called Be Free! in English – is the title of an exhibition the Czech National Museum opened on Tuesday’s anniversary of the start of the Velvet Revolution. It is located in the institution’s new building, the former home of Czechoslovakia’s Federal Assembly, and is co-curated by Lucie Swierczeková.

Writers were at the forefront of the Velvet Revolution. But when the dust settled on the political changes they found a fast changing publishing revolution underway that left some of them sidelined. We look at the changes in the publishing and literary world over the last two decades.

A play based on the short but stormy love affair between the Third Reich’s infamous propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and a young Czech film star has been causing quite a stir locally. Goebbels-Baarová has sparked controversy ― partly because of its unforgiving treatment of actress Lída Baarová and its message aimed at today’s Czechs. We investigate the play’s background and talk with its joint author and director.

In this week’s Arts: a new documentary offers an overview of the great Czech film director Miloš Forman, and the 1960s rock group Blue Effect have just brought out a box set of their collected albums.

A Czech architectural landmark has provided the backdrop, and indeed central theme, for a book which has been creating a stir in the literary world. The Glass Room by Simon Mawer tells the story of a modernist villa in a Czech town, from conception to construction, eventually to seizure by the state. The Glass Room has been receiving a great deal of publicity ever since it was nominated for the prestigious Man Booker Prize. Over the phone from his home in Italy, author Simon Mawer voiced his bewilderment as to why his book was proving so popular

Jaromír Honzák is one of the most important figures in the Czech jazz world. The double bass player recently turned 50, marking that milestone with the release of a new Jaromír Honzák Quintet CD entitled Little Things. As well as gigging regularly in the Czech Republic and further afield, he is the head of the Czech Republic’s first dedicated jazz school. I spoke to Honzák before a show at the Prague venue Jazz Dock the other night.

Divadlo Semafor is an inauspicious theatre in Prague’s Dejvice district, from which, over the past half-century, some of this country’s biggest pop hits have emerged. To honour the output of songwriting duo Jiří Suchý and Jiří Šlitr, and the theatre’s 50th birthday, nearly 20 young Czech bands have got together to make an album of cover versions of Semafor songs. Music critic Pavel Klusák is the man behind the project:

The prestigious World Press Photo 2008 has opened at its traditional venue, Charles University’s Carolinum in the Prague city centre, with winning photos highlighting major events from last year – from the election of US President Barack Obama to scenes of conflict such as the war between Russia and Georgia. This year the jury choose some 60 winners from 96,000 entries.

The late Czech architect Jan Kaplický's buildings have been described as 'some of the most remarkable... that Britain has ever seen' and, by a disgruntled Prince Charles, as amongst the worst examples of 'the surrealist picnic' that is modern architecture. When Kaplický died at the beginning of 2009, British architecture lost one of its most creative, and provocative, figures. Long-time friend and head of London's Design Museum Deyan Sudjic has curated an exhibition called 'Remembering Jan Kaplický – Architect of the Future', which runs until November