From November 17, 2023, until the end of August 2025, it has attracted more than 43 thousand visitors. Adding the success of the installation at Milan Design Week (spring 2023, 11 thousand people) and as part of the Prague International Design Festival Designblok, which contributed to its creation (autumn 2023, 17 thousand people), the visitor numbers reach 71.5 thousand. The first week of September 2025, as the last week of the exhibition, will still add further data to the statistics.
And these are not the only figures that the Moravian Gallery can provide regarding the closing exhibition. At the showcase, supported among others by the president of the republic, 86 artists and authorial associations exhibited. On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Museum of Applied Arts in Brno, the authors exhibited around 150 exhibits. The exhibition, conceived by Maxim Velčovský with edit! architects and curated by Danica Kovářová and Eva Slunečková, was complemented by 10 tons of porcelain shards. The visitors themselves contributed further by shooting a luck plate from a special machine. The record of more than eighteen hundred (1,838) such released emotions is presented as a 140 cm wide, 50 cm high, and 5 cm deep scar in the wall of the Museum of Applied Arts in Brno. Together with the plates that people decided not to break but purchased and took home intact, the number of pieces reaches 2,159.
„The exhibition showcased the strength of Czech glass and porcelain in environmental and political contexts,“ evaluates Jan Press, director of the Moravian Gallery Brno, „from the smoking Ukrainian car wreck shot by Russian occupiers (the exhibition in Milan started a year after the beginning of the Ukrainian occupation, responding among other things to the related energy crisis and its fatal impact on this segment of the industry – editor's note) through installations of empty barrels and piles of shards to the „shooting range“ with a plate launcher, where people could realize why lower quality porcelain waste accumulates, even though they bear the mark of handmade production and natural materials. A similar theme in glass was brought by Tomáš Kučera, who presented the beauty in manufacturing defects in hand-blown glass. The exhibition strengthened interest in craftsmanship, the work of Czech designers, and the appreciation of glassmakers' work. During the energy crisis, it also allowed viewers to watch the closure and reopening of the Květná glassworks through online broadcasts and simultaneously presented the successes of chief designers Jan Plecháč and Kateřina Handlová, who – as laureates of the annual Czech Grand Design awards – have parallel exhibitions in the Moravian Gallery.“
The Moravian Gallery has become an active supporter of contemporary Czech design through the Made by Fire project – it directly purchased a number of works and enriched its collections with them, and alongside quality design, it presented Czech glassworks and porcelain manufacturers as such, drawing attention to their fate. „With the exhibition project Made by Fire, we wanted to bring the world closer to what is most valuable in Czech design. The creativity of the creators, the connection to master traditions, quality local production, and the art of coping with the context of the times. Glass and porcelain are materials that require fire for their creation, both literally – after all, they are created in furnaces – and figuratively; they need the passion of their creators to push boundaries, create beauty, and struggle for progress,“ described Jana Zielinski, director of the Designblok festival and expert guarantor of the Made by Fire project.
Examples of the best that Czech designers and manufacturers have created in the „game with fire“ in recent years fascinated the Italian audience as early as spring 2023. „At the presentation at Milano Design Week, due to enormous interest, entry to the Triennale building was closed for an hour,“ recalls Jan Press. And Jana Zielinski adds: „A number of prominent personalities and representatives of the most important global media came to see it. And their reactions boiled down to one comment: ‚We must come to the Czech Republic and explore Czech design more closely.‘ And that was exactly the reaction we aimed to achieve.“
The exhibition also received an extraordinary response in the Míčovna of Prague Castle during the autumn Designblok 2023. The showcase of top design in glass, porcelain, and ceramics then became a symbol of the accessibility of Prague Castle. From there, it moved to its home Moravian Gallery in Brno.
In the spaces of UMPRUM Brno, Made by Fire found a double area and an expanded list of exhibits and authors from November 2023 to the present day, tens of thousands of enthusiastic viewers: „Made by Fire is fire!“ they wrote, for example, in the visitor book, „cute“ or „amazing“ others noted. „Made by Fire was an amazing exhibition showcasing the creative paths to creation and also what happens in the minds of artists. Long live art!“ The success of the exhibition underscores the overall impression from the visit to UMPRUM in Brno: „The most beautiful UMPRUM we have seen. Thank you,“ write Jarka and Berta, agreeing with Rob: „the best museum I have ever visited!“ „In one word, amazing!“, „beautiful“, „inspirational“, „beauty!“ others state, „full respect!“, „a fantastic selection“, this is the foreign reaction directly to the exhibition of glass and porcelain. And visitors from Plzeň and Beroun summarize for everyone: „Boredom in Brno? It doesn’t exist!“
A unique exhibition that concluded the trilogy of grand exhibitions born from fire in the Moravian metropolis was and still is a true grand finale of the Made by Fire project. It will end on the evening of September 7, 2025.
Basic information about the Made by Fire exhibition
- Address: Museum of Applied Arts of the Moravian Gallery in Brno, Husova 14, Brno
- Date of occurrence: November 17, 2023 – September 7, 2025
- Website: moravska-galerie.cz / madebyfire.eu
- Instagram: @moravskagalerie
- Press center: Made by Fire is ending! – Moravian Gallery
- Organizer: Moravian Gallery in Brno
- Expert collaboration: Designblok, Prague International Design Festival
- Expert guarantors of the project: Jan Press, director of the Moravian Gallery in Brno; Jana Zielinski, director of Designblok (Prague International Design Festival); Jiří Macek, creative director of Designblok
- Curators: Danica Kovářová, Eva Slunečková
- Concept and design of the exhibition, authorial collaboration: Maxim Velčovský
- Architecture and design of the exhibition: Vítězslav Danda (edit! architects)
- Graphic solutions: Lukáš Kijonka
Exhibiting authors
Michal Bačák, Luisa Bělohlávková, Paula Benčaťová, Jakub Berdych Karpelis, Jiří Černický, Tomáš Černý, Studio deFORM (Jakub Pollág and Václav Mlynář), Dechem Studio (Jakub Janďourek and Michaela Tomišková), Markéta Držmíšková & Petr Hák, Eva Eisler, Julie Feixová Šišková, Dominik Forman, Herrmann & Coufal, Hidden Factory (Eva Pelechová and Gabriel Vach), High Temp (Tomáš Bárta), Johana Hnízdlilová, Klára Horáčková, Yulin Huang & Lukáš Houdek, Tereza Hrušková, Martina Hudečková, Chiaramonte Marin (Alfred Chiaramonte and Marc Marin), Prokop Chludil, Šárka Ištvánová, Anna Jožová, František Jungvirt, Joo Kawasumi, Sebastian Kitzberger, Boris Klimek, Hana Knížová, Lucie Koldová, Jiří Krejčiřík, Kengo Kuma, Gréta Kušnírová, Vendula Kvíz Radostová, Arik Levy, Zdeněk Lhotský, Live Longer (Adéla Fejtková and Silvie Luběnová), LLEV (Marcel Mochal and Eva Mochalová), Nonna Lorenz, Monika Martykánová, Elis Monsport, Stanislav Müller, Nalejto (Markéta Kalivodová, Lucie Vasilová and Lenka Záhorková), Jakub Nepraš, Lukáš Novák, Óda (Johana Němečková and Barbora Kolerusová), Olgoj Chorchoj (Michal Froněk and Jan Němeček), Ľubomír Ontkonc, P3L1 (Petra Sošťáková and Libor Sošťák), Milan Pekař, Jiří Pelcl, Eva Pelechová, Johan Pertl, Jakub Petr, Dominika Petrtýlová, Daniel Piršč, Jan Plecháč, Rony Plesl, Tadeáš Podracký, Matěj Polách, Tomáš Rachůnek, Vojtěch Říha, Lada Semecká, Tereza Sluková, Markéta Spružinová, Tono Stano, Ota Svoboda, Roman Šedina, Jakub Špaček, Markéta Špundová, Barbora Štefánková, Klára Šumová and Veronika Vlková along with Jan Šrámek, Marieta Tedenacová, Antonín Tomášek, Quynh Trang Tran, Tyformy (Pavla Vachunová), David Valner, David Valovič, Vasku & Klug, Veronika Velčovská Jiroušková, Maxim Velčovský, Karolína Vintrová, Henry Wielgus, Studio Wrinkle (Aylin Irfanová and Helena Patelisová), Lenka Záhorková, Zeitgeist (Jakub Pollág), Adam Železný
We thank for the loan and preparation of exhibits
To the exhibiting authors, companies Bomma, Brokis, Český porcelán z Dubí, G. Benedikt Group, Křehký, Lasvit, LUCIS, Moser, Preciosa Lighting, Rückl, Signal Festival, SKLO PETR, Thun 1794 and private collectors: the collection of Patrik Šimon, the collection of Viktor Mácha, and the collection of Maxim Velčovský.
The Made by Fire exhibition is part of the celebrations of the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Museum of Applied Arts of the Moravian Gallery in Brno (November 17, 2023 – September 7, 2025). The Made by Fire project is held under the auspices of the president of the Czech Republic, army general ret. Ing. Petr Pavel, M.A., and the chairman of the government of the Czech Republic, prof. PhDr. Petr Fiala, Ph.D., LL.M. Additionally, the auspices were taken over by the Minister of Culture of the Czech Republic, Mgr. Martin Baxa, the Minister of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic, Ing. Jozef Síkela, the governor of the South Moravian Region, Mgr. Jan Grolich, the mayor of the statutory city of Brno, JUDr. Markéta Vaňková, and the mayor of the Brno-střed city district, Ing. arch. Vojtěch Mencl.
- Main media partner: Czech Television
- Main foreign media partner: Label Magazine
- Media partners: Aktuálně.cz, ArtAntiques, Artalk.cz, Artikl, ArtMap, CzechCrunch, CZECHDESIGN, Deník N, DesignMag.cz, Dolce Vita, ELLE Decoration, Hospodářské noviny, KAM v Brně
- Partner: Ministry of Culture, Technical Services Brno, joint-stock company
Moravian Gallery in Brno
