Čtvrtek 28. března 2024, svátek má Soňa
130 let

Lidovky.cz

Holes appear in financial picture of Prague National Gallery

Evropa

  12:16

Long-term unpaid bills have appeared in the accounts of prime Czech cultural institution, the National Gallery in Prague, clouding its future

Vladimír Rösel is seeing red at the National Gallery foto: © ČTKČeská pozice

The new head of the National Gallery in Prague has charged his long-time predecessor, the colorful and controversial Milan Knížák, with failing to pay some of the venerable institution’s outstanding bills over a long period while pretending that the Czech Republic’s prime cultural institution was breaking even.

Economist Vladimír Rösel took up his new post as general director in June, after the conclusion of Knížák’s 12-year tenure in the post, and it appears that the skeletons in the gallery accounts have not taken too long to come forth. Knížák’s long-time boast that he had turned around the collection of galleries after taking over — and left the books balanced on his departure — now appears to be false.

‘It would have  been responsible to admit the whole problem and admit that the National Gallery did not have the required finances to cover its actual costs and declare a loss in the annual accounts.’

Reporting on the new holes in the accounts, Czech daily Lidové noviny said the gallery’s half year review has shown a Kč 20 million disparity between planned and actual costs, adding that this total could double by the end of 2011.  The paper added that at least from 2008 onwards the National Gallery’s budget did not add up, with undeclared unpaid bills being allowed to mount up while the budget was officially still reported to be breaking even.

“It would have been responsible to admit the whole problem and admit that the National Gallery did not have the required finances to cover its actual costs and declare a loss in the annual accounts. At that stage, it would have been possible for someone to start dealing with the problem,” Rösel told the paper.

“Now the National Gallery must come to terms — as it has so many times in its history — with the incompetent administration of its previous management, or with his deliberate covering up of his insufficient leadership of the institution,” Rösel added.

Rösel says that the unpaid bills from the past must now be paid although how that can happen is far from clear. Dwindling state support means that the gallery has already cut limited free entrance to exhibitions and is considering the temporary closure of some of its sites. The Ministry of Culture has one of the smallest budgets of all Czech ministries and is already under cost-cutting pressure.

In addition to its normal running expenses and costs of exhibitions, the National Gallery faces additional costs next year from the opening of Salmovský Palace at the Prague Castle complex. The building, in possession of the gallery since 2002 and long been subject to reconstruction, should house its collection of art from the Middle Ages.

Public conflict

Rösel and Knížák had a very public clash when the 45-year-old investment company manager was selected to take over the job. Knížák said the new director did not understand culture and labeled him “a vain dilettante.”

During the 1980s Rösel was a lecturer at the National Gallery and also has experience from the Guggenheim Museum in New York. The National Gallery collection comprises works of art and sculptures dating from the Gothic era to modern.  

Knížák, a dissident artist under the former communist regime who was branded an enemy of the state by the secret police, inspired admiration and hate in almost equal amounts from the artistic community and public. He was criticized for some of his art purchases and had a very public fall out with Czech art prankster, David Černý, famous for his Entropa art exhibit in Brussels during the Czech Presidency of the EU in 2009. Černý depicted a series of EU countries with unfavorable symbolic references: Bulgaria as a squat Turkish toilet, Germany as a Nazi-shaped motorway and France as a banner proclaiming a strike.

The National Gallery is responsible for eight permanent and temporary exhibition sites in the Czech capital and is recognized as one of the country’s leading cultural institutions.

FOR KIDS by měl být zážitkem pro celou rodinu, říká Monika
FOR KIDS by měl být zážitkem pro celou rodinu, říká Monika

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