The exhibition presents a complex story of the intertwining of various, often contradictory artistic styles against the background of a more or less linear timeline. The emphasis is primarily on paintings and sculptures, which introduce visitors to the basic currents and tendencies of Czech modern art in the period under review. A significant specific feature of the second part of the exhibition is the placement of Czech post-war art in a broader Central European art context.
Art of the first half of the 20th century
The Mansarda exhibition space is dedicated to the art of the first half of the 20th century. The introduction of the exhibition captures the fading echoes 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 Cubo-expressionism to Civilism. The exhibition also includes abstract manifestations and Surrealism from the turn of the 1920s and 1930s. Its conclusion belongs to the work of the artists of Skupina 42. Special attention is also paid to modern landscape painting, whose most prominent examples, albeit in a different artistic language, also capture the atmosphere of their time of creation.
A completely unique part of the exhibition is a set of chamber works by one of the founding personalities of European abstraction, the Olomouc native Adolf Hölzel, which the museum acquired thanks to the generous gift of Berlin collectors Heinz and Monika Röthinger.
Second half of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st century
The second part of the exhibition, located in the Picture Gallery, aims to bring to the viewers in a concentrated overview the most significant artistic tendencies from the end of the Second World War until the end of the 20th century, with several overlaps into the current century. The exhibition is introduced by examples of the work of significant solitaires of the 1950s and artists who continued 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 Neoconstructivism, Kineticism, and the so-called new geometry, which further developed in the 1970s and 1980s, are presented. This part is logically followed by works of a conceptual nature from the 1970s and 1980s, supplemented by selected examples of action art via a film loop.
In contrast to these positions are paintings and sculptures of the so-called new figuration, Czech grotesque, and later existential figuration of the 11970s and 1980s. The penultimate part of the exhibition belongs 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 form is expanded, in continuation of 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, not only Czech art is presented in the Picture Gallery. 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 placed 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 distinctiveness of individual expressions arising from local specifics cannot be overlooked.
Haptic trail
The exhibition also includes the educational project Haptic trail: Closer to Art by Touch, authored by Denisa Tessenyi, which makes selected plastic works from the collections of Olomouc Museum of Art 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 multi-sensory 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
SPACE SOLUTION 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 Typhlopedy, Palacký University Olomouc, Education Department of MUO
EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS: David Hrbek, Denisa Tessenyi
STORIES FROM THE PERMANENT EXHIBITION (STORYTELLING)
Century of Relativity II
Permanent
