Turning Pages. Modern Book Culture in the Czech Fine Arts

15/06/2016 to 16/10/2016
výstavní síň „13“
Autor: 
Hana Bartošová, Gina Renotière
Kurátor: 
Marcela Štýbrová

This exhibition prepared by the Olomouc Museum of Art presents its collection activities, which pervaded the domain of book culture in the middle of the 1990s. The exhibition, hidden under the ambivalent name Leafing Through, shows Museum’s both book collections.

The collection 20th Century Book comprises an assortment of books, magazines, and anthologies, on whose editing numerous prominent art representatives of the 20th century not only of Czech, but also of German or Russian origin, participated. The focus of the collection is the Czech book avant-garde in the period between the two world wars, when the major streams of the Czech Book Art were represented by functionalist-oriented book layouts and constructivist typography, the unique works of Josef Čapek, and by the artists working in the spirit of poetism and surrealism.

The second collection is significantly represented by the international, or more precisely, the Euro-Atlantic collection of author books and books perceived as a work of art (the second half of the 20th century up to present days) introducing various approaches to this in-heart intermedial branch of fine arts.  Apart from unique author positions, the collection features also the lettrist and conceptual possibilities of work with author books. The boundary between an author book and an object is then represented by works of authors from the significant international movement Fluxus. Books from the publishing house Rainer Verlag form an independent part of this collection. In the years of its existence (1966–1985), this Berlin publishing house was one of the most significant houses publishing author books and was sought by a wide array of now famous authors for its creative and experimental approach. Thanks to the donation of Rainer Pretzell, the Olomouc Museum of Art is the only institution in the world which possesses the full collection of Rainer Verlag author books.