Review „PAW24“
December 2024 – art magazine Flash Art (Czech & Slovak edition)
print no. 74 “Life of the Material / Waste Policy”
ENG translation
Prague Art Week 2024 (PAW 24) took place from 5 to 8 September this year and offered over a hundred events in more than forty venues over four days. Regardless of whether you took part in a "speed run" during one day or spread your visits over several days, the experience was undoubtedly intense. While the first edition focused on networking (NET) and the second on planning (PLAN_T), the third edition was subtitled EDUcare, referring to the nurturing of all that has been built over the years and the importance of continuous creative learning. A number of Prague galleries, museums, centres and project spaces were involved in the unofficial opening of the autumn art season.
The festival opened at the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art, which also served as the headquarters of PAW 24. The opening party, combined with the opening of the solo exhibition Melancholy of the Outer Limits by Josef Bolf, occupied the DOX until late. Nearly seventy small-format works presented Bolf in his signature style – dystopian landscapes and intimate portraits, which were well dramaturgically complemented by an audiovisual show by the American artist and musician Freddy Ruppert (previously known as Former Ghost). Rupert's work explores feelings of anxiety and tension just before a tragic occurrence, which resonated thematically with the apocalyptic scenes in Bolf's works.
The first day of the festival also featured the Superstudio programme, an interactive educational session for arts professionals, organised by PAW in collaboration with DOX. Workshops and lectures covered the topics of breaking down stereotypes, identity, architecture and urban planning. But the very first event on Thursday was a guided tour of the exhibition The Player from the Leon Tsoukernik Collection at the Magnus Art Gallery, a project of J&T Bank. Tsoukernik, known for his Rozvadov casino and gambling empire King's Entertainment, displayed his museum-quality blue chips, which included works by artists such as Jean Dubuffet, Auguste Renoir, Emil Filla, Vasilij Kandinskij, Toyen, Alfons Mucha, Henri Matisse, Jindřich Štýrský and Adriena Šimotová. The exhibition in Prague's Invalidovna will be on display until 14 December.
Another key stop on the PAW24 map was the Savarin Palace. It opened for the first time since the reconstruction and offered visitors three exhibitions of contemporary art. In one place it was possible to see glass works by Rony Plesl and Martin Janecký, a neon installation by Michal Škapa and a group exhibition Young Selection of ten young artists across media. In the case of the latter project, the paintings were presented through a bold installation constructed from metal scaffolding and tennis balls, which contrasted strongly with the historic interior and at times detracted from the artworks themselves. Rather more well-done was the exhibition Flicker Type Fields curated by Pavel Kubesa in the former bank building on Jerusalemská Street. The complicated space full of mirrors, cabinets and partitions was sensitively filled with works by Tereza Kalousová, Lukáš Šmejkal and Šimon Chlouba. The colourful Holec Contemporary Art Collection was then grounded in the same building by Luděk Rathouský's meditative exhibition Black Series.
However incomplete the report from PAW24 is, I would like to conclude with a mention of the exhibition of artists Eva Jokhová, Habimi Fuchs and Natalia Perkof in Ovenecká 33, which was curated by Tereza Porybná. Unprecedented in the local context, the concept of using a private apartment for artist residencies and exhibition programmes is a sympathetic venture on the Prague scene and has added a new dimension not only to Prague Art Week 24.
