A comprehensive guide to the program of the last month of the Biennale
Biennale Matter of Art 2024, exhibition view, National Gallery Prague – Trade Fair Palace (c) Tereza Havlínková
The Biennale Matter of Art 2024 will culminate in a series of performances, excursions, guided tours, and discursive events held throughout September. The program is mainly concentrated in the Biennale centre in the National Gallery Prague at the Trade Fair Palace and reflects the themes of the exhibition – labor and rural change, the mental health of the working class, and sustainable approaches to agriculture.
On September 4, the program of the final month will kick off with a conversation about the future of agriculture with leading Czech experts from research and practice, who will discuss the situation of small farmers and the pressing issues they face with artist and researcher Tomáš Uhnák. As a part of Prague Art Week, the biennale will present a discussion on the transformations of artistic and curatorial strategies that have pursued political goals in recent years and decades. The debate will be held on September 7. An excursion to and discussion in the little-known Museum of Cooperative Movements in Prague on September 18 will connect the ideas of historical solidarity struggles with contemporary initiatives.
Two events on September 21 will offer a unique insight into disappearing postwar architecture and focus on our relationship to complicated histories. An excursion and guided tour with architect Zdenka Nováková and curator of the Architecture Collection of the National Gallery Prague Helena Huber-Doudová will bring the audience to the soon-to-be-demolished Chemapol office building in a post-industrial part of Prague. A discussion about the former foreign trade company’s connections to the rise of agribusiness in the Czech Republic after 1989 will follow in the nearby cultural center Petrohradská kolektiv (also slated for demolition).
On September 23, there will be a debate with the online magazine Artalk dedicated to cultural unions and self-organizing with curator Aleksei Borisionok, unionist Eliška Mazalánová, artist Jirka Skála, and writer and curator Kuba Szreder, moderated by Anežka Bartlová.
On September 26, to mark the occasion of the publication of the Czech translation of McKenzie Wark’s book Raving, there will be a live video lecture by Wark in the Korzo of the Trade Fair Palace in the National Gallery Prague, presented in cooperation with the forward-thinkig music festival Lunchmeat. The final part of the björnsonova collective’s series of performative readings will take place later that evening after dark in the exhibition space of the biennale in the Grand Hall of the Trade Fair Palace.
On September 28 at Petrohradská kolektiv there will be a screening of the film C-TV (If I Tell You I Like You...), which is by Austrian directors Eva Egermann and Cordula Thym and centers around a fictitious inclusive TV show. The screening will be followed by a discussion with academic Kateřina Kolářová and a closing party.
Throughout the month, there will be various guided tours led by the curators of the biennale, Aleksei Borisionok and Katalin Erdődi, as well as the director and curator of tranzit.cz, Tereza Stejskalová.