Until April 28, 2025, the exhibition Chiharu Shiota: Unquiet Soul is taking place, whose monumental installations have been beloved by tens of thousands of visitors. In 2024, Kunsthalle Prague welcomed 105,000 people, who saw a total of six exhibitions and participated in more than 100 cultural events. Over 250 programs for school groups were also held, which Kunsthalle offers always for free. “I am glad that Kunsthalle has become an open and vibrant space for the general public in three years and offers a rich program that appeals to all generations,” says the director of Kunsthalle Prague, Ivana Goossen. The institution will celebrate the third anniversary of its opening in the week from February 17 to 23, 2025, when a rich program will take place and the day will feature discounted entry in the form of “pay what you want.” During the birthday celebrations, visitors will also have the opportunity to meet Ivana Goossen in person. She will lead a workshop on knitting with wool yarn inspired by the exhibition Unquiet Soul. Traditionally, the day will also be joined by the staff of Kunsthalle Café with a terrace and a view of Prague Castle and Petřín.
“In 2025, we will also focus curatorially on connecting the Czech and international art scenes and audiences. Each of our exhibitions is created exclusively for Kunsthalle Prague and together they present a wide range of approaches and media,” states chief curator Christelle Havranek. Right in February, Kunsthalle Prague will begin collaboration with the Czech Grand Design awards, whose showcase of finalists will venture beyond the usual gallery formats. Under the title Space of Desire, it is being prepared by the artistic duo SHOTBY.US (Karolína Matušková and Lenka Glisníková) and curator Iva Polanecká. The theatrically conceived exhibition with a surreal touch explores the emotion of desire and critically reflects on our relationships with objects.
In April, attention will shift to the exhibition Calling of the Forest, the most ambitious and first institutional project by Kristyna and Marek Milde in Prague. This artistic duo living in Brooklyn, New York, has long been dedicated to the relationship between humans and nature in their work. They have prepared two fundamental new works for Kunsthalle Prague: Arbomobile (2024), a New York taxi filled with living trees, and Call of the Forest (2024), a video animation created from photographs of tree tattoos from the public. The curator of the exhibition is Theo Carnegy-Tan, who is also behind the curatorial concept of the following project.
Kunsthalle Prague will present a significant extensive retrospective of key figures in abstract art Anna-Eva Bergman & Hans Hartung: And Nothing Will Divide Us. Although their work and life are closely intertwined, this will be the very first joint exhibition of this artistic couple. The exhibition will offer previously unseen works and archival materials from their studios. It will focus on the overlooked aspects of their lives, including their relationship with music, architecture, and the natural world. The project is also curated by Pierre Wat and is being created in collaboration with the Fondation Hartung-Bergman in Antibes and under the auspices of the Embassy of France in the Czech Republic. It has already been ranked by the prestigious magazine Christie's among the 12 most anticipated exhibitions in Europe this year.
In the fall, Kunsthalle Prague will present a new audiovisual exhibition, which, thanks to the top-notch technical equipment of Gallery 3, will expand the spectrum of presented media. The year 2025 will then conclude with a solo exhibition by Roman Ondak, for whom this will be the first extensive presentation in the Czech and Slovak environment. The exhibition is being prepared by collection curator Barbora Ropková and selected works from the Kunsthalle Prague art collection will also be on display. Ondak, inspired by the conceptualism of the 60s and 70s, transforms ordinary objects and situations in his installations and performances, connecting the historical specifics of Central Europe with family biography and adding an authentic and intimate dimension to the works.
Interdisciplinary Overlaps of the Public Program
The accompanying program for 2025 connects art, science, and social issues. The spring semester of the TransformArt course (March 10 – May 12, 2025) will focus on the responses of contemporary art to today's challenges and will build on the exhibitions Calling of the Forest and Chiharu Shiota: Unquiet Soul. Participants can look forward to classes on the Japanese art scene, haptic perception, or the influence of space on our perception of the world. Lecturers will include doctoral student from Oxford University Jason Waite, theorist Emma Hanzlíková, Japanologist Helena Čapková, artist Kasia Fudakowski, and others. The popular Ambient READ will also continue, offering the opportunity for uninterrupted immersion in the world of books accompanied by ambient music in an environment inspired by a Japanese garden. For curious children, a new program called What I Don’t See in the Gallery, an interactive detective game, will be added. The creative potential of technology will continue to be developed through regular innovative workshops with artificial intelligence, created in collaboration with Aignos.
The fourth season of the unique student debating league is also not missing. “We are long-term focused on cultivating the debate about art. We provide students with a platform for developing debating skills and navigating topics related to art,” concludes public programs manager Martina Freitagová.
Books with International Distribution
Kunsthalle Prague is also preparing several significant publications. In February, an English catalog for the exhibition of Chiharu Shiota will be released, with international distribution from the prestigious Berlin publisher DCV. The uniquely processed publication with hand-stitched Japanese binding fukurotoji will be launched on February 26 with the personal participation of the artist. On the occasion of the opening of the retrospective of Anna-Eva Bergman and Hans Hartung, a comprehensive exhibition catalog in Czech and English with texts by renowned French authors, including Thomas Schlesser, director of the Fondation Hartung-Bergman, is being prepared. The design of the book will be provided by Studio Najbrt and the international distribution by Hatje Cantz. The fall will bring a monograph of Bedřich Dlouhý from the m edition, prepared in long-term collaboration with the Academia publishing house and Gallery KODL. An accompanying catalog for the exhibition of Roman Ondak will be released at the beginning of 2026. All books will be available at the Design Shop of Kunsthalle Prague, at the brick-and-mortar store at Klárov, and online.
Community Dimension of Membership
The community of Kunsthalle Prague now consists of over 18,000 members. A significant part consists of young people under 26, for whom membership is free thanks to the support of other membership categories. Membership includes not only year-round access to exhibitions, free guided tours, and discounted offers for cultural events, but also exclusive opportunities such as trips for art in the Czech Republic and abroad. The upcoming Members Trips, for example, will head to the Berlin Gallery Weekend or the Frieze fair in London. Membership also includes visits to local artists' studios and member parties. Beyond membership itself, Kunsthalle Prague offers space for collaboration and dialogue with donors, corporate partners, and everyone who wants to actively contribute to its development.
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Open daily from 11 AM to 7 PM, on Wednesdays from 11 AM to 9 PM. Closed on Tuesdays. Free for members: https://www.kunsthallepraha.org/clenstvi.
