The exhibition 20th-Century Czech Art and Its Labels presents labels that are used to define the chronology of 20th-century Czech art and are commonly found as chapter headings in art history publications: the Mařák School, sculpture, Symbolism, Cubism, Surrealism, Group 42, (un)official art in 1948–1989, the eighties generation, the 1990s. Each of these “boxes” represents a broader category (a school, an -ism, etc.), but they also define particular groups of works and artists and present us with different challenges.

The exhibition explores the phenomenon of artistic partnerships in the visual arts, meaning the relationship between married artists or life partners, with a focus on artists whose personal and artistic careers unfolded against the historical upheavals of the 20th century. The exhibition’s chronological arrangement traces the evolution of the various relationships and the partners’ changing status in the different social and political conditions. Their process of artistic creation was influenced by external circumstances and by small, personal, everyday stories.

The exhibition All That We Have, named after a painting by Stanislav Diviš, presents a cross-section of works by Eva Horská and Jakub Horský and offers an overview of a broad range of printmaking techniques and book printing. The title reflects a positivist view of a world that responds to chaos through the museum practices of collecting and cataloguing. The exhibition is a kind of housecleaning as the artists prepare to move their entire workshop to Martínkovice near Broumov, where they plan on becoming “barn-based printers” who combine a fading past with the potential offered by new methods and materials.

The exhibition The Past Won’t Let You Go presents the art of Veronika Rónaiová and Peter Rónai as a dialogue between two distinctive artistic strategies that, despite their different visual language, share an interest in the memory of the image and in its repetition, appropriation and transformation over time. Veronika Rónaiová draws primarily on painting, which she layers, repaints and combines with photography, collage or assemblage. Peter Rónai works with photography, video, objects, installations and performance art, often reinterpreting familiar images, objects or cultural symbols within new contexts.

The exhibition surface On the Wall, which is part of the permanent exhibition 20th-Century Czech Art and Its Labels, is dedicated to styles, motifs, groups and artists that have remained outside the mainstream narrative of modern art. These works document the multi-layered character of the era’s artistic production and remind us of the limitations of the art-historical “sieve” that all works of art must pass through before they can become a part of codified art history.

The exhibition space Behind the Wall, which is part of the permanent exhibition 20th-Century Czech Art and Its Labels, is dedicated to artists who in 1948–1989 worked outside official structures of cultural policy – either on the underground scene or in the grey area overlooked by official institutions. They often created experimental works, action art, happenings or other intangible or temporary installations. Seen from today’s perspective, these works – created and shown “behind the walls” of studios, homes or weekend cottages – are some of the conceptually richest artistic documents of that era.

This intimate gallery space Na bidýlku II presents works by the youngest generation of artists, current students and art school graduates. Its name and mission recall the activities of the gallerist Karel Tutsch, whose collection was acquired by GMU in 2021.

Jiří Valoch’s artistic practice has been fundamentally defined by a sensitivity to language since the mid-1960s. Valoch created his first textual installation in the spring of 1970, during the last pioneering years of conceptual art. From an interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist, we know that this piece was a minimal object poem titled ticho (silence), and that it was included in an exhibition by the Club of Concretists at Brno’s House of the Lords of Kunštát (13–30 March 1970). In this single word, rendered in black on a white, horizontally oriented panel, special emphasis was placed on the letter “i” – by “dotting” it from both above and below, Valoch disrupted the word’s conventional semantics, leaving the viewer uncertain how to approach the work and how to interpret it.

Presented in the form of an open depository, the exhibition Vladimír Preclík’s Gift to the Hradec Králové Region includes all the works from a collection donated by the sculptor Vladimír Preclík (fifty-four works in total), supplemented by other works from the collection of the Gallery of Modern Art in Hradec Králové.

Wish consists of two columns between which five steel cables are stretched. Letters of the alphabet hang from the cables, which visitors can manipulate to form various five-letter words in a vertical formation. The interactive installation encourages viewers to engage in literary playfulness or to leave a message for the next visitor. That visitor can in turn replace that message with their own, thus the content of the Wish is constantly changing.

Hradec Králové’s Velké náměstí (Great Square) is currently dominated by cars. This large parking area in the historic city centre has been the scene of clashing opinions regarding the square’s current and future use. On the one hand are voices in favour of preserving parking and in support of car traffic, while on the other hand there is an interest in designing public space for people and their daily activities. Czech society has generally cherished its cars and placed them on an untouchable pedestal, but there is currently debate throughout the country as to whether public space should be more accommodating to people or to cars.