Jiří Kolář: X Biennial of São Paulo

In September 1969, Jiří Kolář won an award at the X Biennial in São Paulo, Brazil. While the exhibition at the National Gallery reconstructs his award-winning presentation, this film screening presents—in the spirit of so-called confrontage, one of Jiří Kolář's collage techniques—two different perspectives on the same event.

The film Forum und Chance für Künstler?, created in collaboration with German curator Dietrich Mahlow, offers an informed view of the X Biennial, notorious for a boycott in which many artists protested against censorship and human rights violations by the Brazilian military dictatorship. The second film, Kilowatty z Tietê by director František Arlet, provides a possible explanation for why socialist Czechoslovakia was interested in participating in the biennial.

Forum und Chance für Künstler? Die zehnte Biennale São Paulo / Dietrich Mahlow / West Germany, 1970 / 42 min. / DCP / in German / CZT / EF
On Official Assignment: Kilowatty z Tietê / František Arlet / Czechoslovakia, 1972 / 20 min. / DCP

An introductory address will be given by Rado Ištok.