Pavla Petrová

Opening Statement of PQ Director

 

The success of the 13th Prague Quadrennial in 2015 is the result of the hard work of the entire organisational team. Nevertheless, the festival has also been made possible by the work of all preceding generations of scenographers and other artists who have exhibited at the Prague Quadrennial over the past nearly 50 years and have thus contributed to shaping its identity.

For these reasons, I find it important for us to recall why the Prague Quadrennial exists in the first place. The festival was born in response to Czech scenographers’ significant international successes in the 1960s, in particular their receiving the highest awards at the São Paulo Art Biennial, which was the most important event in the field of scenography at the time.

The São Paulo biennial’s organizers had been looking for a suitable partner in Europe, and because the Czechoslovakia was a Mecca of European scenography, in 1967 they chose Prague as their partner. The first Prague Quadrennial was a great success, with 25 participating countries and a relatively large number of visitors from the general public. Still, until the early 1990s the Prague Quadrennial was seen more as an industry event for professionals. The festival nevertheless was of fundamental historical importance, because it acted as a bridge across the Iron Curtain that helped bring Western artists and their work into the former Czechoslovakia.

Since 1989, we have had to find ways of opening up the Prague Quadrennial to the general public, which I believe we have succeeded in doing. The festival continues to grow and evolve not only artistically but also in the number of expositions, exhibition sites, and visitors – this year’s festival features 67 country expositions and, with all the accompanying projects, artists from 78 countries.

Over the course of its history, the Prague Quadrennial has grown into a unique event that overcomes physical borders and mental barriers to show artistic diversity and human creativity in their most natural form.