The company Plzeň 2015, o.p.s is a significant partner of exhibition projects

One of the main items of the Pilsen – European Capital of Culture 2015 programme is the exhibition Munich – The Shining Metropolis of Art 1870–1918, which presents works by artists from the famous Munich school of painting, the Munich Jugendstil and the avantgarde movement of Der Blaue Reiter group. The exceptional exhibition, which apart from painting also focuses on drawing and applied graphics, took four years to produce and offers visitors surprising discoveries, works not previously exhibited and gems loaned from private collectors. The exhibition maps the shared fate of Czech and German artists and brings an important message about the way they lived and worked together.

The remarkable story of Gottfried Lindauer inspired The Gallery of West Bohemia to bring about a unique exhibition that sees forty Maori portraits from the end of the 19th century travel from New Zealand to Europe for the first time. The exhibition will offer Maori portraits exclusively loaned from from the Auckland Art Gallery as well as works created in our country before the painter's departure abroad – portraits of Pilsen townsfolk and the Cyril and Methodius cycle from Valašské Klobouky. Pilsen 2015 will support this, the largest exhibition project in 2015, with other smaller exhibitions. The interactive exhibition Mud, Misery and Bohemians in Papírna focuses on the emigration of Czechs to New Zealand and was prepared by Pavel Anděl as part of his search for Stod citizens. For the exhibition The Face of Pilsen, we have asked eight modern painters to use Lindauer's work as inspiration and to prepare a separate exhibition of portraits of Pilseners living around us, with their anthologies to be included in a competition. One of the competition criteria is that these people are linked to a non-profit organisation which will receive a donation from part of the proceeds raised by an auction of the portraits.

The exhibition Baroque in West Bohemia will be a splendid way to complete one of Pilsen 2015's flagship projects, 9 Weeks of Baroque. The 9 Weeks of Baroque festival will take place in 9 areas, presenting 81 weeks of Baroque music and celebrations that will bring back to life and make accessible many Baroque monuments in the Pilsen Region. The exhibition Baroque in West Bohemia gives another spiritual and technical dimension to the "secular cultural festivities". It focuses on thematic and artistic units, on localities and towns, monasteries and nobility. It will also draw attention to folklore expressions of Baroque art. After a very successful exhibition of Gothic art, we continue to examine the cultural heritage of the region, a theme that closely concerns us, along with the Gallery of West Bohemia.

Plzeň 2015