The National Gallery Prague (NGP) has reconstituted its external advisory bodies, which are appointed and dismissed by the institution’s General Director in accordance with its statute. The bodies concerned are the Advisory Council for Acquisition Activities (also known as the Acquisitions Commission) and the Scientific Council. The National Gallery’s professional collaboration with academics and specialists via the institution’s advisory councils also continues.
In June of this year, a majority of the members of the Acquisitions Commission resigned and Alicja Knast, Director General of the National Gallery Prague, made a commitment to the Guarantee Board of the NGP (established by the Ministry of Culture) to assemble a new commission by the end of September. This has now occurred and this external advisory body is once again complete. The members are experts from Czech and foreign institutions and galleries, whose practice has given them direct experience with acquisition activities or who are otherwise professionally involved in them. New members of the commission include Marek Pokorný, director of the PLATO Gallery in Ostrava, Jan Zálešák, Ph.D., of the VUT Faculty of Fine Arts, Brno, Richard Drury, head of the art department at GASK – Gallery of the Central Bohemian Region, Prof. Sabine Folie of the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Piotr Oszczanowski of the National Museum in Wrocław and Hilke Wagner from the State Art Collections in Dresden.
“An art museum is a very specific institution, the cornerstone of which is traditionally its collections and the approach to building them. The acquisitions deficit our art museums are continuously contending with is actually growing: initially, it was caused above all by ideological surveillance of collection building and then, over the past thirty years, by minimal funds available to replenish them,” states Marek Pokorný, director of the PLATO Gallery. Speaking of his involvement, he adds: “The Acquisition Commission of the National Gallery Prague is thus always faced with the very delicate task of manoeuvring between representational needs and the real possibilities of the institution. Each decision by the commission actually has a strategic angle. Perhaps that is why I am interested in being involved in it.” The Advisory Council for Acquisition Activities is tasked with discussing, recommending and approving planned acquisitions to the NGP collections, i.e. new purchases, gifts or bequests made to the National Gallery Prague.
Following the June resignation of one of its members, the Scientific Council of the NGP has added two new members – Marek Prokůpek of KEDGE Business School in Paris and Kathryn L. Libin of Vassar College in the United States. Speaking of his role, Marek Prokůpek states: “I expect to contribute to ensuring that the gallery’s research activities correspond to the highest professional standards while being accessible to a broader audience.” The Scientific Council of the National Gallery Prague comments on the resolution of fundamental questions of institutional development concerning scientific and research activities, as well as acquisitions, exhibitions, publications and other activities of the NGP.
In addition to the above-mentioned members of the Acquisitions Commission and the Scientific Council, some members of the Publishing Council and the editorial boards of the specialist magazines published by the National Gallery Prague (the NGP Bulletin and the magazine Ars linearis) also resigned in early June. These councils will be reconstituted by the end of the year to ensure that there is no disruption to publication.
These resignations occurred because the specialists disagreed with General Director Alicja Knast’s dismissal of the head of the Department of Science and Research. The resigning council members also disagreed with art history students needing to pay to enter the NGP and accused the General Director of a lack of communication. In August, a significant step was taken concerning the entrance fees – the National Gallery Prague signed a Memorandum of Cooperation with Charles University. It will serve as a possible model for agreements between the NGP and other institutes of higher education, such that art history students and lecturers can access the collections and exhibition spaces of the National Gallery free of charge for educational purposes.
Negotiations between the dismissed head of the Department of Science and Research and the institution are ongoing; he remains an employee of the NGP, which has offered to involve him in a project under the Jan Amos Komenský Operational Programme.
Overview of specialists in the NGP advisory councils from October 2024
Advisory Council for Acquisition Activities of the National Gallery Prague:
1. PhDr. Dušan Buran – Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava
2. Univ. Prof. Dr. Sabine Folie – Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna
3. Mgr. Zdeněk Freisleben – Memorial of National Literature
4. PhDr. Eliška Fučíková – Independent Scholar
5. Richard Drury – Gallery of the Central Bohemian Region, Kutná Hora
6. Mgr. Jindřich Mleziva – Museum of West Bohemia in Pilsen
7. Dr. hab. Piotr Oszczanowski – National Museum, Wrocław
8. Mgr. Marek Pokorný – PLATO Ostrava
9. Prof. PhDr. Alena Pomajzlová, Ph.D. – Masaryk University in Brno
10. PhDr. Dagmar Pospíšilová, CSc. – National Museum, Prague
11. Mgr. Maria Szadkowska – Museum of Prague
12. Dr. Hilke Wagner – State Art Collections Dresden
13. Doc. Mgr. Jan Zálešák, Ph.D. – VUT Faculty of Fine Arts, Brno
14. Mgr. Ondřej Zatloukal – Olomouc Museum of Art
A list of the members of the Scientific Council of the National Gallery Prague is available on the website.
