“So that’s me, the Young Turk – I don’t feel especially comfortable in this skin, because I’m not in favour with the native Mohammedans. Though with Fatima, Zora, Sultana, and Aisha…” is how Brno painter Oskar Spielmann versified it, when in the summer of 1931 he sailed to Algeria for the hot sun and exoticism. His story spans the imaginary worlds of East and West. The German-speaking Brno native with Jewish roots, under the influence of the fatal events of the Second World War, eventually set anchor for another two decades in Algeria, from whence he also had to flee in 1965 after the Algerian War of Independence as a pied-noir to the south of France. Thus he became an indirect participant of two major exoduses in 20th century European history: the expulsion of ethnic Germans from Czechoslovakia and the departure of the Europeans from Algeria.
From the time of his studies in Vienna at the beginning of the 1920s, Oskar Spielmann kept in written touch with this brother Paul, an architect and furniture designer. To Brno, to Dresden, to Ústí nad Labem, and back to Brno, wherever Paul escaped the advances of Nazism. Oskar wrote in German, occasionally in French. Paul also used the Czech version of his given name, Pavel, even writing several letters in Czech. Their letters flowed for forty years between Czechoslovakia, Northern Africa, and France. They reflect everyday life, and also a ticket over the horizon of everyday life. They sketch the inner world of the brothers, a world permeated by music, literature, unfulfilled longing to meet again in person, but also the certain connection with another who quietly understands and listens, despite the distance.
After his exhibitions in Brno, Prague, and Bratislava at the turn of the years1936/1937, Oskar Spielmann did not return to Czechoslovakia. His works, which he casually left in Brno with his parents, survived thanks to the selfless efforts of his brother Paul’s family. The unique atmosphere of period Brno interiors combining Spielmann’s vision of the Maghreb in interaction with the Art Deco furniture of Paul Spielmann will now live again in the installation in Rub Gallery Olomouc. In it, Prague visual artist Mark Ther re-evokes the spirit of a “Brno colonial salon” – a space where one encounters First Czechoslovak Republic nostalgia and Oriental extravaganza, the hot southern sun and hometown comfort, nostalgia and dreams.
Exhibition conception: Ivo Habán, David Voda, Mark Ther
Curator: Ivo Habán
Architect: Mark Ther
Exhibits: Oskar Spielmann, Paul Spielmann
Items on loan: Courtesy of the Petr Spielmann Archiv, z. s.
Graphic artist: Jan Herynek
EXHIBITION ACCOMPANYING PROGRAMME
“Organising exhibitions is murder”
Sales salon of works by Oskar Spielmann Vol. 1
Meeting of collections of art lovers in the exhibition space with curator Ivo Habán, leading Czech art historian and art market expert on works by German Czechs. Opportunity to buy works by Oskar Spielmann at reduced prices.
Refreshments provided. Free admission
18 October 2024, Rub Gallery Olomouc, 5 pm – 8 pm
“Organising exhibitions is murder”
Sales salon of works by Oskar Spielmann Vol. 2
Meeting of collections of art lovers in the exhibition space with curator Ivo Habán, leading Czech art historian and art market expert on works by German Czechs. Opportunity to buy works by Oskar Spielmann at reduced prices.
Refreshments provided. Free admission
15 November 2024, Rub Gallery Olomouc, 5 pm – 8 pm
Lecture by Ivo Habán at the UP Art History Department / Exhibition closing at Rub Gallery
“Oskar Spielmann: A Case Study of the Algerian School” (in Czech)
Art historian and exhibition curator Ivo Habán will lecture on the rediscovered personality of Czechoslovak, German Czech, and Franco-Algerian modernism, painter Oskar Spielmann, as well as on his monograph published this year by the prestigious publishing house Arbor vitae, where Habán summarises his research via recent advances in the disciplines of post-colonialism, orientalism, and gender studies.
18 December 2024, 3:30 pm, Auditorium maximum, UP Arts Centre – Convictorium, Department of Art History, UP Faculty of Arts
Guided exhibition tour and closing of the exhibition from 5 pm in Rub Gallery
In cooperation with the Olomouc Museum of Art, the Arbor vitae publishing house, and the Department of Art History, Palacký University Faculty of Arts
Rub Gallery Olomouc, Komenského 10, 77900 Olomouc, Czech Republic www.rubgallery.com
