COURAGE

connecting collections

Since 2012, in cooperation with Artyčok.tv, the Academic Research Center of the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (VVP AVU) has released a "Window to the Video Archive" programme with works from the VVP AVU Video Archive. Thus, many videos (video art, films and documentaries) from the Video Archive are accessible online. Material in the section "Window to the Video Archive" presents older works (material dating back to the end of the 20th century), works on the border of video art, film and document, as well as documentary material related to the recent development of Czech and Slovak fine art.

Artyčok TV is an online platform for contemporary art, monitoring and co-creating art scene events and related cultural activities. Artyčok TV was created in 2005 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. It’s database of audiovisual material includes exhibitions reports, profiles, and lectures by theorists and artists. The content of Artyčok TV is developer mainly by artists, curators and theoreticians.

Some interviews with Vytenis Andriukaitis by the journalist Inga Liutkevičienė were published in 2012. The book Lietuviškas Imunitetas. Vytenio Povilo Andriukaičio gyvenimo interviu (Lithuanian Immunity. An Interview about the Life of Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis) includes interviews about the underground Strazdelis University, and copies and illustrations of documents about it. The whole collection is still not accessible to researchers or society, as it needs to be transferred to institutional (state) archives (Andriukaitis plans to do this in the near future), and making an inventory of the contents of the collection requires a lot of work. Because of this, the book is very useful in understanding the cultural opposition in Lithuania.

Stilinović's retrospective exhibition with the ironic title Zero for Conduct, was held at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb from 30 November 2012 to 3 February 2013. Tihomir Milovac, the curator of the exhibition, came up with the title Zero for Conduct, which refers to the movie of the same name directed by Jean Vigo in the 1930s. Milovac wanted this title to underscore Stilinović's anarchism, the struggle against institutions, and the intractable artistic nature that is strongly present in his work.

The retrospective covers the period from Stilinović's first films in the early 1970s, the early series of photographs of Mayday 1975 to recent photographs such as the Chinese propaganda from 2001. The works from the cycles "Money," "Economy," "Geometry of Cakes,˝ "In Praise of Laziness," "Work is a Disease," and the "Exploitation of the Dead" are presented. The exhibition was well attended by the public, and received good media coverage.

The Jan Hus Educational Foundation's collection presents an extraordinary set of materials documenting the work of a British organisation focusing on the support of the cultural opposition in Czechoslovakia, mainly through the underground university, scholarships, and the publication and translation of forbidden or inaccessible books. The collection was handed over to the Moravian Museum in 2012 after negotiations were made.