Dílna Mikulov - Art symposium
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Dear friends,

Summer in Mikulov is a great thing. So man things visitors can see, experience, discover. Meet the people, learn about the town’s history, walk through a glowing vineyard, visit a wine cellar. But summer in Mikulov is associated with something else as well. At the chateau, above the tourist rattle and hum, paints are mixed, chisels cut, and a creative spirit is at work. The Mikulov Art Symposium is underway, its fruits are ripening and the exhibition – the harvest – is always a great pleasure.
This year’s dílna brings even more satisfaction. All the works that were created here during the last seven Symposiums, have their place in public. A plan has been carried out to establish a permanent exposition of the Mikulov art collection “Harvest 1994 – 2000”. On behalf of the town, I would like to express heartfelt gratitude to the organizers, artists and all the others who participated in the successful existence of the MAS as well as hope that when we are no longer here, the “dílna” will continue to flourish.

Stanislav Mach
Mayor of the Town of Mikulov

The much sought exposition of the Mikulov Art Symposiums became reality. Its name is a tribute to the town which has managed to keep a new tradition and made possible the birth of the permanent gallery installation. The space possibilities of the chateau were limited but their choice, as it turned out in late summer, was a happy one. The interior installation is connected to the older exposition of painters with ties to Mikulov and forms a logical link.
The sunny eastern terrace with the renovated Baroque staircase, benches and new plants, filled with families in summer, with children playing around, with young people with backpack, sleeping after demanding explorations of a wine-making town. The neighbouring arcade with a free installation of sculptures attracts people with its shade and the possibility to touch the art of sculpture.
The chateau and the town acquired a new quality of which the Museum as well as its administrator, the District Authority in Břeclav, are aware.

Dobromila Brichtová
Director of the Regional Museum in Mikulov

The word dílna, workshop, evokes something handcrafted, something down to earth, what smells of fresh wood and turpentine. The Mikulov Art Symposium “dílna” belongs to those extraordinary events at which the freed imagination of foremost Bohemian and Moravian sculptors and painters encounters a sense of matter as well as the spirit of the material and of genius loci of the magical South Moravia.
I am personally very happy that the Ministry of Culture can support this activity and contribute at least to some extent to its successful existence. Many successes.

Pavla Petrová
Director of Art Department, Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic

Motto: I don’t seek what is topical now,
Bu t what is now beyond my powers..
10th October 2000, N. Armutidis

Talking about what the Mikulov Art Symposiums mean for me means talking about my relation to contemporary art and about the meaning of art for human life. In 1992-1993, a sensitive urban intervention took place in the architecture of Mikulov. The building of Česká spořitelna closed off the town square again. What at that time interfered with the quiet life of the town was not the generously design building but one part of it – the shining kyriatid by the sculptor Nikos Armutidis. Made of gilded bronze, mysterious, grandiose, dematerialized, with the curves of Art Nouveau figures, it was probably inapprehensible to those who had not coped with the development of art in the last years of the 20th century. Perhaps because they retained their traditional criteria which were however meant for art of a different character then contemporary art. Young people reacted in a very different way – I mean students from the local grammar school who know that the meaning of a work of art lies in the dialogue with the viewer. The “dílna” provides them with an infinite number of motifs and inspirations for their own work as well as for theoretical thoughts which found their forms in the annual seminary works for the subject of art education. Among topics from world and Czech art, such themes appeared as “dílna 94”, the Stubborn in Mikulov, Nikos Armutidis and Mikulov, Armutidis – Mucha. The charisma and the work of Libor Lípa have helped in a great deal to shape the relations to modern visual art. His talks with students are feats of art.
The permanent exposition of the Mikulov Art Symposium “dílna” in the exhibition areas of the Regional Museum of Mikulov I consider a deed whose immense importance that many can’t even estimate.

The modern art expression will have its way even at the price of temporary misunderstanding by the general public and the beautiful town of Mikulov will be renowned as a town of art.

Jarmila Červená
Grammar School Mikulov