Stanislav Malý: Orchid

The permanent exhibition will end on May 24, 2026.

The permanent exhibition "Transmission," as its name suggests, refers to the original technical relic in the building of the Automatic Mills, which served a clear purpose in its time: it ensured the transfer of driving power to all working machines. However, the term transmission should not be understood solely in a technical sense; it can also be encountered in the humanities. In the sense of mediation, transmission, sending, or release, it brings us to cultural content. The name transmission carries several concepts of perceiving the exhibition itself: it shows linear changes in the history of art and the boundaries as a way of defining oneself against tradition and creating new values; it presents the concept of transmission as the very transfer of experience between the artist and their work; and last but not least, the exhibition itself is understood as the preservation and transmission of memory.

The main idea of the exhibition is based on the fundamental division of the world, which was first determined by the sophists in ancient thought, into the realm of nature (physei) and man (nomó). These seemingly contradictory elements, historically understood over time, are simultaneously a central theme of the permanent exhibition, drawing on the strengths of the collection, where reflections on landscape, society, and humanity intertwine. At the same time, there is an effort to unify them, in the spirit of freedom, imagination, the dissolution of clear boundaries between dream and reality, and above all, an attempt to bridge the chasm between nature and the world of man.

The exhibition will feature graphics and drawings, which will be regularly changed to protect the works. None of the selected themes should be perceived as a solitary, closed circle, but rather as a complex organism that passes through a broad perception of society. In addition to its didactic function, the exhibition will present the history of visual arts more as a network of stories and forms.

Photo: Karel Malich, I Sit and Observe the Sky (detail), 1976, collection of the Gočár Gallery.