Exhibition

Lavutara: Following Roma musicians and their songs

17:00 guided tour of the exhibition

The exhibition offers and authentic look at music from the perspective of its performers (musicians, event organisers, musical instrument producers and repairmen, and other witnesses) and also gives an opportunity to learn about the broader political context. One of the topical chapters presents the consecutive circumstances of the turning point in 1989 which has become a strong impulse for the organisation activities among the Czechoslovak Roma. A significant event in this respect, the 1st global Roma fesitival ROMFEST, was organised in Brno in 1990. Hundreds of performers took to the stage in the presence of the current political representatives, including the then Czechoslovak president Václav Havel.

18:00 music programme

Traditional Roma music performed by Lukáš Čonka and Romana Horvátha and the Milan Horváth and Viliam Oračko dulcimer bands. The event takes place as part of the Musical Summer at the Museum of Romany Culture – a series of concerts by significant groups and artists of the Brno Roma music world.

This programme takes place in cooperation with the Museum of Romani Culture.

Laco Garaj: Sixty

Opening of the exhibition with the participation of the author.

Laco Garaj (* 1959) returns to Schrott Gallery after a year with an exhibition he prepared for his birthday. There will be a retrospective of his older works, we will select drawings and gouaches of smaller formats that have not been displayed before. You can also look forward to large-format paintings from a cycle that is being currently created in Laco’s new studio on the banks of the Dyje River. In his most recent works, the author has tried some techniques unusual for him so far, where the use of sprays and fluorescent colours are the most significant. It’s possible that this year’s set of large-format paintings will represent a step into a new creative chapter for this artist.

Laco Garaj studied sculpture at SUPŠ Brno. In 1978-80 he was a part of a beatnik community of artists around Václav Stratil in Olomouc. Here Laco develops his tendency towards conceptual and active creation. A breakthrough exhibition in Dolní Kounice in 1980 was dispersed by the police and the artists and musicians were detained for 24 hours. Since then, Laco has become more and more an anti-regime artist. Thus also his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague fell through. He made his living as a construction worker or as a stoker in a boiler room at Špilberk castle and focused on art in his free time. Today, Garaj is known primarily as a painter, sculptor and vitrageist.

The exhibition can be seen until 29/6/2019.

Programme partner: Schrott Gallery.

Meeting Brno festival opening: Brno Liberated!? exhibition

In the year of the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the communist regime, we prepared an audiovisual interactive exhibition in cooperation with Post Bellum, titled Brno Liberated!?
On 25 April 1945, the Red Army entered the centre of Brno. The hope of regaining freedom and democracy did not concern all the inhabitants of the city, however. The German citizens were indiscriminately expelled, many also murdered. Post-war Czechoslovakia did not rejoice in freedom for long. In February 1948, the Communists seized power and brought a time of political trials. The short period of fresh air in the spring of 1968 ended with the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops. The comemmoration of the occupation on 21 and 22 August 1969 was brutally suppressed by the Czechoslovak security forces. Despite the freezing silence of ‘normalization’ in Brno, there was democratic opposition. In the underground environment, new works were being created, samizdats were published, educators fired from universities held seminars and lectures. Hope for freedom and democracy only came true in November 1989.
The exhibition does not judge, does not claim. It lets witnesses and direct actors not only of these key events of the 20th century speak out without comment. All stories of witnesses were recorded by the “Memory of the Nation” branch in Brno.

The exhibition is available on 29/5 – 28/6/2019 at Moravské náměstí near the Red Army Soldier. Free entry.

More information and reservations at brno-osvobozene.cz.