The last days of the month also mark the end of the Czech EU presidency. If you missed former deputy PM Alexandr Vondra symbolically handing over an oak beer barrel to Swedish chargé d´affaires on a boat in the middle of Vltava last Saturday, make sure you visit the centre of Prague this weekend. To celebrate the end of the presidency and to show what a cultural city the Czech capital is, the Prague City Hall has organised a three-day festival with many places taking part.
Opening on Friday, the event will provide free access to a number of galleries and cultural sites, including the National Gallery in Prague between 10am and 6pm. A skateboard exhibition with participation of world’s elite skateboarders is scheduled to take place by the metronome up on Letná on Saturday, 12am–10pm. The Smíchov beach by the river will offer a cocktail festival also on Saturday, while on Old Town Square traditional Czech dishes and Moravian wines will be served accompanied by street artistic shows and music. Entry is free to all events.
Also on the occasion of the presidency handover, Czech-born guitarist Rudy Linka and Swedish pianist Bobo Stenson, both well-acclaimed musicians, will play at Rudolfinum on Monday, 29 June. They will play from their repertoire as well as traditional jazz music and songs inspired by Czech and Swedish folk.
Nine Inch Nails will play in Prague tonight as part of their tour to promote The Slip, an album available as a free download via their official website. The US electronic industrial music band led by Trent Reznor is famous for using spectacular visual elements to accompany their performances. Tickets to their third concert in Prague, this time at O2 Arena, are available through the Sazka ticket network and online at Artistmusicexchange.com. Depeche Mode are playing at Prague’s Eden Arena on Thursday, 25 June. There are no tickets left. But the English band will be back next year, 14 January, and tickets to the show are still available. Don’t miss your second chance.
The Prague part of the Tanec Praha contemporary dance festival is closing this week with a gala night of exclusively Czech dance artists at O2 Arena on Friday, 26 June. The annual Respect Festival brings world music to the Vltava’s Štvanice island 26 and 27 June. The event will feature a variety of styles from Gypsy music to Gambian ritti to traditional Persian music and flamenco.
If you like Jewish music, anything from Klezmer melodies to Yiddish jazz and Chassidic songs to gypsy and Latin-American styles, Valdštejnská garden is the place you want to be in the following four days ending Saturday. The venue hosts Nine Gates, the 10th International Festival of Czech-German-Jewish Culture, and the entry is free. Among the guests is the Stockholm-based group Freudenthal Yiddish Klezmer Band and London Prague Jewish Jazz Band led by the Czech pianist Emil Viklický and British saxophonist Bob Wellins.
Olaf Breuning, a Swiss-born artist now living in New York, has a solo exhibition at Prague’s Langhans Gallery. The exhibit features a selection of his drawings, photographs and, among other things, Home 2, a film that was a highlight of last year’s Whitney Biennial. Irony and critical view of the globalised world are the chief elements of Breuning’s works, which also include a photograph transforming the Moais sculptures on Easter Island into Easter bunnies. The Olaf Breuning exhibition will run through 27 September.
The Robert Guttmann Gallery which is part of the Jewish Museum in Prague hosts an interactive exhibition of Czech artist Petr Nikl allowing the visitors to create their own Golem. The event is to commemorate the anniversary of Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the late 16th century chief rabbi of Prague known as the Maharal, who reportedly created a golem to defend the Prague ghetto from anti-Semitic attacks.
Pass the Popcorn
Czech and foreign films about the Holocaust will be on show at Světozor 27 and 28 June as part of The Legacy of Shoa festival, an accompanying event to the Holcaust Era Assets Conference. In addition to the screenings, discussions with filmmakers and witnesses of the Holocaust are awaiting you.
Also at Světozor this week you can see the world’s first interactive movie whose premiere dates back to 1967 at the World Expo in Montreal. Kinoautomat: One Man and his House, a good example of the Czech New Wave cinema and the brainchild of co-director Radúz Činčera, will be available with English subtitles on Thursday, 25 June, 7pm.
Among the movies entering Czech cinemas this week is Anne Fontaine’s Coco avant Chanel, the story of how Coco Chanel became a global fashion icon. Audrey Tautou has received much praise for her performance in the film which you can see already today at Lucerna.
