The Goodbye Gallery: A Unique Space for Contemporary Art in the Czech Republic

Dan Vlček, a featured gallery artist. Photo credit: Radio Prague

Three years ago, Czech gallery curator Jan Freiberg was uncertain as to where his career was going. He already held an impressive position as a curator for Gallery Klatovy/Klenova – but then he got a call from an old friend offering a unique curating position. “My friend from my native town [was] the director of the museum in Volyně,” says Freiberg, “[and] he offered me three possible places [to curate a new] gallery [there]. The first one was an old school, the second one was a granary from the 19th century. And the third was the funeral home in the cemetery.”

Of the three, Freiberg says the cemetery seemed to be the best – and most serendipitous – option. With his years as curator slowing down and his father nearing death, the idea of curating a gallery space within an end-of-life context might be, he thought, a cathartic endeavor. The result? The Goodbye Gallery, the first of its kind to offer a space for contemporary art in an end-of-life setting in the Czech Republic.

Photo credit: Radio Prague

“With his years as curator slowing down and his father nearing death, the idea of curating a gallery space within an end of life context might be, he thought, a cathartic endeavor.”

The Czech way of saying goodbye is also inherently optimistic. In saying na shledanou, one not only says goodbye but also, “we will see each other again.” “I wanted to say something with hope,” says Freiberg about his decision to name the space The Goodbye Gallery, “because we can say goodbye, but we may meet again. That’s the reason.”

Jan Freiberg. Photo Credit: Radio Prague

Freiberg invites both emerging and established artists to the gallery, where they are asked to create site-specific works. “The important thing is the death surrounding this gallery,” he explains, “Death is everywhere in this place and artists need to come to terms with these surroundings. I [seek] artists who would be able to understand death in our culture and what death means in their lives. The first artist [we featured was] Ondřej Maleček. He likes Czech poetry from the 19th century, which is based around the idea of death.”

“Death is everywhere in this place and artists need to come to terms with these surroundings. I [seek] artists who would be able to understand death in our culture and what death means in their lives.”

It’s exciting to see how Freiberg’s seemingly unlikely combination has brought death to the forefront of the Czech art world – it’s yet another effort to bring death into the everyday in a positive light.

Listen to Radio Prague’s interview with Freiberg here.

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