The exhibition presents a complex story of the intermingling of various, often contradictory, artistic styles against the backdrop of a more or less linear timeline. The emphasis is primarily on paintings and sculptures that introduce visitors to the basic currents and tendencies of Czech modern art in the period under review. A distinctive feature of the second part of the exhibition is the placement of Czech post-war art into a broader Central European artistic context.
Art of the first half of the 20th century
The Mansarda exhibition space is dedicated to art from the first half of the 20th century. The introduction to the exhibition captures the lingering effects of impressionism and symbolist tendencies at the beginning of the century. Its main focus, however, is a thorough and rich presentation of modern movements from expressionism, cubism, and cubism-expressionism to civilism. The exhibition also includes abstract manifestations and surrealism from the turn of the 1920s and 1930s. Its conclusion features the work of artists from Skupina 42. Special attention is also paid to modern landscape painting, whose most prominent examples, albeit with a different artistic language, also capture the atmosphere of the time of their creation.
A completely unique part of the exhibition is a collection of chamber works by one of the founding figures of European abstraction, Adolf Hölzel, a native of Olomouc, which the museum acquired thanks to the generous gift of Berlin collectors Heinz and Monika Röthinger.
Audio guide for the exhibition Century of Relativity II
Second half of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st century
The second part of the exhibition, located in the Obrazárna, aims to present viewers with a concentrated overview of the most significant artistic trends from the end of the Second World War to the end of the 20th century, with several overlaps into the current century. The exhibition opens with examples of works by significant solitaires of the 1950s and authors who followed the pre-war avant-garde. This is followed by post-war abstract art, i.e., works associated with various forms of gestural and structural abstraction. From the many contradictory tendencies of the 1960s, examples of neo-constructivism, kineticism, and so-called new geometry are presented, which further developed in the 1970s and 1980s. This section is logically followed by conceptual works from the 1970s and 1980s, complemented by selected examples of action art through a film loop.
In contrast to these positions are the paintings and sculptures of the so-called new figuration, Czech grotesques, and later existential figuration of the 1970s and 1980s. The penultimate part of the exhibition is dedicated to postmodern manifestations, whose influence was clearly reflected in the art of the following decades. Compared to the original exhibition from 2013–2025, the new version is expanded, in connection with the first part of the permanent exhibition, to include works capturing the development of post-war landscape painting and other diverse artistic approaches to the relationship with nature.
As already mentioned, the Obrazárna does not only present Czech art. In connection with the long-term acquisition efforts associated with the Central European Forum Olomouc (SEFO) project, whose building will be realized in the coming years as an extension to the existing Museum of Modern Art, Czech post-war art is set in a broader artistic context. The international context shows that art created in similar political, cultural, and social conditions shares many common features, but at the same time, the individuality of individual expressions arising from local specifics cannot be overlooked.
Haptic Trail
Part of the exhibition is also the educational project Haptic Trail: Closer to Art by Touch, authored by Denisa Tessenyi, which makes selected plastic works from the Olomouc Museum of Art collections accessible through 3D printed models, haptic elements, and verbal descriptions. It allows visitors in the exhibition antechamber and the adjacent CEAD space to experience art not only visually but also through touch and multisensory experiences. It is intended primarily for people with visual impairments, but it can be used by anyone who wants to discover art without barriers and in new ways.
century of relativity ii
AUTHORS AND CURATORS: Štěpánka Bieleszová (1900–1946), Štěpánka Bieleszová, Ladislav Daněk (1947–2000+)
LANGUAGE EDITING AND TRANSLATIONS: Hana Havlíčková, Zuzana Henešová
GRAPHIC DESIGN: Petr Šmalec, Kateřina Manková
SPATIAL DESIGN AND INSTALLATION: Vlastimil Sedláček, Michal Soukup, Filip Šindelář, Radka Žáková
PREPARATION OF EXHIBITS: Jakub Barna, Veronika Langer Klimszová, Anna Píšťková, Gabriela Polívková
HAPTIC TRAIL: Department of Typology, Palacký University in Olomouc, Education Department of MUO
EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS: David Hrbek, Denisa Tessenyi
STORIES FROM THE PERMANENT EXHIBITION (STORYTELLING)
Century of Relativity II
Permanent
