Projects

The Prague Quadrennial organized an exhibition of video art with the title "About" – Scenographic Video Essays. This playful exhibition is based on unconventional experimentation and plays with the impossibility of exhibiting scenography while trying to retell it. The exhibition was shown March 18 to April 13 at the Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace in Prague.

The exhibition "About" – Scenographic Video Essays accepted the challenge to exhibit scenography differently: Instead of boring display cases with costume sketches or set designs, it threw the viewer into the creative process of scenography, thus showing how scenographers see the work of their colleagues.

"At the Prague Quadrennial, we are constantly struggling with the limited ways of showing scenography. We had previously chosen to exhibit documentation from performances and other events related to scenography. We now invite visitors to the first ever, basically experimental, interpretation of our artistic discipline in the form of video art," said exhibition curator and PQ artistic director Sodja Lotker in presenting the project.

Exhibition visitors could see four video essays, arranged in an original manner in the Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace's dance hall by scenographer Dragan Stojčevski. Marek Cpin's essay looks at Kamila Polívková and her performance SAM, where she and Karel Roden (the actor playing the main role) explore the attractive but also very deceptive question of popularity. In Polívková's video about Cpin, the main role is played by costumes from productions of The Cherry Orchard, Three Sisters, Wuthering Heights and more. In his reflections upon the work of Lucie Škandíková, Antonín Šilar leads us into ordinary places of our everyday lives (a pub, train station, preschool, senior home), where he brings theater to life. For her part, Škandíková based her video on a creative dialogue between Antonín Šilar and his regular director Petra Tejnorová.

More information on the various artists is available HERE.

The playfully provocative exhibition was well received by the general public, the Czech and foreign media, and the foreign participants of the international symposium "Scenography – Spatial Curation", which the Prague Quadrennial organized on April 2-4 in the dance hall at the Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace.

The exhibition is easy to transport and technically uncomplicated, making it suitable for other exhibitions not just in the Czech Republic but also abroad. The texts and videos have already been translated into English.

photo: Petr Jedinák

photo: Petr Jedinák

Project realization team
Curator: Sodja Lotker
Exhibiting artists: Kamila Polívková, Lucia Škandíková, Marek Cpin, Antonín Šilar
Exhibition design: Dragan Stojčevski
Post-production, editing, video essays: Dominik Žižka
Production: Viktoria Hozzová, Anna Friedländer, Karina Kotulková, Michal Zborník

Kamila Polívková used to work for the Divadlo Komedie under director Dušan Pařízek; today she works abroad and most of her work in the Czech Republic is with Studio Hrdinů. Lucia Škandíková works with many Czech Directors, most frequently with Daniel Špinar; she also creates her own site-specific and community projects. Marek Cpin works on scenography throughout the Czech Republic, most frequently at the Theatre on the Balustrades under its main in-house director Jan Mikulášek. Antonín Šilar frequently collaborates with director Petra Tejnorová in using technology to explore the very limits of theater.

Organized by Prague Quadrennial / Arts and Theatre Institute
With support from Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic

Acknowledgments
Divadlo Husa na Provázku, Brno; Divadlo Reduta, Brno; Divadlo v Dlouhé, Prague; Divadlo Petra Bezruče, Ostrava; Klicperovo divadlo, Hradec Králové; Studio Hrdinů, Prague; Divadelní skupina Sergeant Tejnorová & the Commando, Prague; Kostelní Preschool, Prague; Czech Railways; Domov Sue Ryder, and City Gallery Prague

An overview of press responses is available HERE.