“It would be best if everyone became their own guide,” artistic director Markéta Fantová says about the extensive program of the Prague Quadrennial, which began last Thursday and will last until Sunday, June 18. The program of the world exhibition of scenography and theater design has 300 items and includes exhibitions, performances, discussions and workshops. Creators from 65 countries sent in the competition part.
During the 11 days of the festival, even the biggest theater enthusiast cannot do everything. “We each have to choose what is closest to us,” states Fantová.
The Prague Quadrennial takes place at three locations in the metropolis. The main exhibition of countries and regions, like the student one, is located in the Holešovice Market Hall, a selection of theater architecture can be seen in the Fair Trade Palace, while performances and workshops take place in the DAMU premises. From here, the theater program spills over into the public space.
Everything started with a low-key, somewhat comical performance that was closer to a student happening than the grand opening of a world exhibition. A performer in a golden dress and blond wig sat on a mechanical rodeo bull fenced in with soft padding. He was holding on to the saddle with one hand, the megaphone in the other. “We call all stage designers and designers to overthrow the dogmas and abolish the rules,” he urged in English until the bull threw him off its back.
English is omnipresent, in the three halls number 11, 13 and 17 of the Holešovice market there is a buzz a bit like at a fair. The national expositions are enlivened by performances, the authors standing around engage in conversations with visitors, and technological effects also attract attention.
It depends on which side and through which hall one enters the exhibition. But his first impression may be that he found himself in a waste sorting facility. Recycling and street aesthetics have already firmly entered the register of designers, not excluding the theatrical ones. Chaotic displays are the most striking, but there are also coldly aesthetic ones, and pink ones.
The Portuguese stall invites you into a tight labyrinth of corridors with soft paneling and dimmed lighting. | Photo: Jakub Hrab
The exhibition of Portugal combines steely coldness with soft intimacy. In the work cell there is a table with a swivel chair and a lamp. They are covered with spiky, steel-shiny fur that no one wants to sit on. These are not textile fibers, but the tips of thousands of pins. In addition, the “fabric” undulates and makes sounds, as if it reflects mysterious impulses sent from a cloud suspended above the table.
Behind him opens the entrance to a tight labyrinth of corridors, alluring with their soft paneling and subdued lighting emitted by thousands of light dots at the end of flexible rods. What kind of theater would something like this be suitable for? Officially estranged and deeply warm, even erotic? For something by Franz Kafka?
The representatives of Slovakia depict the destruction of the world, in which polystyrene plays a large role. The team around Košice’s Divadl Na Peróně created a black polystyrene cube that is hollow with the architectural studio Doxa. You can see inside through several holes. There, three times a day, performers cut like dwarfs, expanding the interior space with spoons and axes.
“We were inspired by the sculptor Michal Machcinik, who fills various cavities with foam and then casts the void from the obtained shape,” says actor Peter Kočiš. Pur foam, like polystyrene, is used to insulate houses. “We insulate our homes, we make them inaccessible to the effects of nature, we actually isolate ourselves from it,” explains Kočiš, why the exhibition was called Home is Warmth.
The main theme is said to be greed, the expansion of personal space at the expense of the surrounding world, of which nothing will be left in the end. The same may happen with the Slovak polystyrene cube.
Is there a piece of styrofoam? A picture from the Slovak exhibition at the Prague Quadrennial. | Photo: Jakub Hrab
The last can
The Czech exposition offers a thoughtful installation full of references to subconsciously known, but not very pleasant places. It was created by artist David Možný, who until recently did not know much about the Prague Quadrennial. He showed his work called Limbo Hardware for the first time the year before last at the Fait Gallery in Brno at the Blink of an Eye exhibition. Only then did someone recommend him to enter the competition at the Czech exhibition.
Although it is a purely artistic thing, it fits perfectly into a scenographic show. In a large square container with one open side, the artist installed six partitions separating seven narrow rooms. More like corridors into which only a child or a very thin adult can stretch.
Perfectly faithful materials evoke public interiors in which one usually has no need to linger. Nevertheless, at first glance he recognizes where it is – a corridor in a block of flats with an elevator at the end, a section of the banking area, a hotel corridor with an anonymous door, an old apartment hall, an office, a game room and one more dark room with a surprise.
“A person walks through the cross-section of those spaces, similar to how a film camera can pass through a wall from one room to another,” Možný gives a hint on how to enjoy the work. For Limbo Hardware, named after the Latin limbus meaning pre-hell, he collected as faithful a material as possible.
Tiles and elevator doors from a demolished house, a slot machine from a decommissioned arcade, the right shade of washable gray-green wall paint. “It’s Linkrust plastic paint, shade 5620, which was used in the 70s. I bought it in Brno with a discount, probably the last can. When I needed another one, it was nowhere to be found,” explains David Možný.
The Prague Quadrennial takes place every four years. | Photo: Jakub Hrab
Filipino Karaoke
The national exposition has a diverse effect. Some countries, such as the Czech Republic, bet on one work, while others preferred the performance of their theater personalities, which is an example of China. Its self-service stand shows the scenography of twelve local authors. Each is presented with a single crank mechanism similar to a flashinete. However, after turning the handle, instead of a song, a bunch of printed cards illustrating the work of this creator are stirred up.
The Ukrainian exhibition attracts a lot of attention. Inside, the intense smell of fresh grass wafts through the floor. Several separate objects can be a scenographic element of a production about the current war. For example, a radiator under which there are several mugs. Visitors can draw water from the heater’s valve and, if they dare, even drink. Similar to what the residents of Mariupol did due to the lack of drinking water during the recent siege by the Russian occupiers.
Not all state fairs were successful. In the empty place where the Kuwaiti delegation was supposed to present itself, there is only a sign with a rather complicated explanation, which says something about the lack of understanding for modern art.
The student part of the Prague Quadrennial adapted the most to the environment. Dozens of stalls have sprung up in the space between the halls of the Holešovice market, one crazier than the other. In one, a complex network of colored balls is entangled, another is a not very stable-looking observation tower, and further on is a dismantled car transformed into a projection kiosk.
Student exhibitions are not only attractive with their “design”, young authors often stand next to the works, willingly explaining and inviting visitors to come closer. “Do you like to sing? Everyone here loves to sing. This is our professor,” says a young man in front of a colorful Filipino stall hung with sweets. He points to a man in a suit who, oblivious to his serious appearance, sings karaoke with a dazzling smile and great enthusiasm among the shelves full of merchandise.
“If you don’t want to sing, you can at least choose something from our stand. These cookies are very popular in the Philippines and this fan is woven from palm leaves,” the guide continues and sets the price: “Choose anything and leave us something of your own”.
The first year of the Prague Quadrennial took place in 1967. | Photo: CTK
The Prague Quadrennial has been held since 1967, once every four years thanks to it scenographers from all over the world come to Prague. The last edition in 2019 was visited by 20,000 paying visitors, including 8,000 professionals from 106 countries. Another 50,000 people watched the accompanying program, exhibitions and performances.
The current fifteenth year has the theme of Rare as the name for art “unique, unique and special”. The festival fulfills the assignment even outside of the competition. The festival award Zlatá triga will be announced this Tuesday, and on Friday, June 16, the Prague Quadrennial is open to the public for free. It’s open until midnight.
