Arts | All stories

An exhibition at Prague’s DOX gallery features wide-ranging depictions of Israel and the West Bank by 12 renowned photographers from around the world, including one of the greatest Czech photographers, Josef Koudelka. The exhibit, entitled This Place, explores the complexities of life in Israel, and offers an unusual take on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Punk as an artistic style is usually associated with music and fashion but Prague’s Jaroslav Fragner Gallery now explores punk elements in architecture. The exhibition, featuring structures built over the span of five centuries, looks as what elements of the punk movement can be identified in historic and contemporary architecture in the Czech Republic and abroad.

Czech writer Jan Němec is among 13 young European authors who have won the 2014 European Union Prize for Literature. Němec was recognized for his unusual debut novel about the renowned Czech photographer František Drtikol. Entitled A History of Light, the novel captures Drtikol’s complex personality, and follows his path from photography to eastern spirituality and Buddhism.

Masters of Rock, held near Zlín, is the biggest international rock festival the Czech Republic each year, with a spin-off winter event as well as sister festival in Plzeň. Masters of Rock in the past has featured legends from Def Leppard to Motorhead. This week, promoters announced that the headliners for 2015 will be the Finnish rock phenomenon Nightwish.

In recent years, the Czech Republic and Prague specifically have seen an increase in street performance or street theatre. This Saturday, visitors can see troupes perform in the city centre in V Kotcích Street – just a stone’s throw from Můstek, a central meeting point for both locals and tourists. The small one-day festival will provide shows for children and adults in a normally quiet street which used to be home to Prague’s first stone theatre, Divadlo v Kotcích (no longer standing).

There have been a number of time-lapse videos and would-be viral commercials making use of Prague’s beauty in recent times. But to my mind Magic Carpet Ride Over Prague is in a different league, capturing many of the Czech capital’s most spectacular views with gliding and fast-climbing aerial shots that take the breath away.

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.

Amanita Design is the independent Czech game design studio behind the point-and-click adventure games Machinarium and Botanicula. With beautifully hand-drawn backgrounds and richly-designed worlds, the games put players in the shoes of protagonists such as a broken little robot or a group of unusual creatures who face robotic wrongdoers and a dark parasitic force, respectively. Both titles have proven very successful. Recently, I caught up with Jakub Dvorský, and asked him not only about the games but also how he started his business.

Thursday saw the start of the International Organ Festival in Olomouc, a famous concert series first launched in 1969 which take place every year at the Church of St. Maurice.

The Fresh Film Festival – highlighting films by debuting directors, students and professionals – is just around the corner, set to take place in Prague in the second half of September. Ahead of the festival, Radio Prague spoke to Fresh Film’s programme director Michal Hogenauer.