Strings Attached: The Living Tradition of Czech Puppets

Exhibition

LETTERS OF INTRODUCTION

DEAR COLUMBUS MUSEUM OF ART VISITOR,

While most Americans have very fond memories of encounters with puppets, they are less likely to realize their importance as vehicles for self-expression and freedom. By their very nature—being distanced from the person or persons who bring them to life, these inanimate objects have the potential to communicate ideas and beliefs that would be impossible to air in any other way. Strings Attached: The Living Tradition of Czech Puppets examines the role that puppets have played in preserving Czech identity during the last three centuries when, during much of this time, ruling forces attempted to suppress Czech language and culture. At the same time and on a less serious note, the exhibition demonstrates that Czech puppets, like puppets the world over, entertain and reflect the full range of human emotions—from joy and humor to tragedy and disappointment. We especially are pleased to connect the traditions of historic European puppetry as evidenced in the exhibition with the manifestations of puppetry in contemporary theater and film the world over.

The Columbus Museum of Art and the College of Arts and Sciences at The Ohio State University have been privileged to collaborate with the Arts and Theater Institute of the Czech Republic to bring this first-of-its-kind exhibition to the United States and in particular to Central Ohio. We thank many people, who have worked tirelessly for several years in making the exhibition possible. First and foremost are our partners at the Arts and Theater Institute in the Czech Republic including, Pavla Petrová, director, Nina Malíková, exhibition curator who, with her team, has brought the puppets and important contextual material together so that they tell the story of Czech puppetry. Dr. Malíková also has contributed to the catalogue with an essay on modern Czech puppetry. We also are pleased that Dr. Vlasta Koubská, head of the Theater Department at the National Museum in Prague, has supported the exhibition and loaned a number of important photographs for both the exhibition and the catalogue. Professor Joseph Brandesky, The Ohio State University, Department of Theater, who serves as our guest curator, has worked tirelessly on the project. An expert in Russian and European theater history, he has made many trips to Prague to expedite the details of the exhibition, and he has contributed an excellent introductory essay to the catalogue. Other contributors to the catalogue include Lenka Šaldová, who has examined the history of puppetry in the Czech Republic and Beth Kattelman, professor of theater at OSU, who has connected the history of puppetry in Europe to the trajectory of American puppetry. Kateřina Jenčová Hipská served as translator for the Czech essays.

CMA staff has been instrumental in dealing with the complexities of organizing this international exhibition. Dr. Carole Genshaft, CMA Adjunct Curator, has served as in-house curator. Melinda Knapp, Chief Registrar and Exhibition Manager, assisted by Jennifer Seeds Martin, Associate Registrar, has supervised myriad details of bringing the exhibition to Columbus. Jeff Sims, of the museum’s education department, is responsible for the exhibition videos, which document performances of the puppets and introduce some of the contemporary artists and filmmakers who work with puppets today. Greg Jones and his production team are responsible for the beautiful installation and design of the exhibition. Christopher Duckworth, the museum’s Editor and Director of Publications, has shepherded the production of the catalogue.

We are indebted to Joseph Steinmetz, College of Arts and Sciences Executive Dean and Vice Provost, and to Mark Shanda, Divisional Dean, Arts and Humanities at Ohio State for helping us to secure funding for the exhibition and to the OSU Theater Department for its collaboration with Petr Matásek, one of the Czech Republic’s foremost stage designers. At the same time that the exhibition is on view, we are fortunate to benefit from this rich partnership. Professor Brandesky and students from the theater department will work with Matásek in the production of aPOEtheosis: A Fantasy Based on the Life of Edgar Allan Poe, which typifies the innovations and creativity of puppetry in contemporary theater.

We know that Strings Attached will be enjoyed by a wide audience who will delight in learning more about puppetry, an art form that continues to entertain, inspire, and educate all of us today.

Let Art Speak to You,

Nannette V. Maciejunes

Executive Director, Columbus Museum of Art

Carole M. Genshaft

Adjunct Curator, Columbus Museum of Art

DEAR LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,

The Arts and Theater Institute in Prague is a specialized research institution that focuses on the fields of stage design, theater architecture, costume design, and theater photography. The Arts and Theater Institute is also the organizer of the world’s largest stage-design event, the Prague Quadriennial of Performance Design and Space that was created in 1967, which featured as one of its founders the prominent Czech stage designer Josef Svoboda. The works of Josef Svoboda form the core of the ATI collections, as well as several of the exhibits that we’ve organized.

The exhibition organized together with the Columbus Museum of Art and The Ohio State University represents an important phenomena of Czech culture—Czech Puppet Theater. Czech puppeteers significantly contributed to the transformation of the field of puppetry in the second half of the twentieth century, not only in the national sense but more importantly, internationally. Now Puppet Theater forms an important part of living culture in the Czech Republic, and the ATI supports both the promotion of this unique field of human interest, as well as its documentation and research.

I would like to use this opportunity to warmly thank all the collaborating personnel without whom this project would not have happened. Especially I thank the ATI prep team and the Columbus Museum of Art team, expecially its executive director Nannette V. Maciejunes. A great thanks goes to the lover of Czech theater, Joe Brandesky, without whose support and interest in Czech culture it would not be possible to present this grand-scale project to the American audience at all.

I believe that the Strings Attached exhibition, together with the accompanying programming, will raise the interest of American public, and I hope that this event will form the basis of a tradition of further encounters with the treasures of Czech Theater.

Sincerely,

Pavla Petrová

Director, Arts and Theater Institute, Prague

DEAR STRINGS ATTACHED VISITORS:

The Puppetry Collection is among the most important collections at the Theater Department of the National Museum in Prague. It contains more than two thousand puppets, decorations, and props, several of which are described in articles in this publication.

The members of the Theater Department are always very pleased when they can present collections that document the quality of Czech theater to worldwide audiences. Given the current complicated situation concerning the export of collection objects from the Czech Republic, we are glad that photographs of items from our collection can contribute to the quality of the exhibition on the history and presence of Czech Puppet Theater being assembled at the Columbus Museum of Art.

We hope that all visitors to the exhibition will become more familiar with traditional Czech puppets and decorations. They form an integral part of the rich Czech theatrical tradition. We believe that contemporary puppetry also will please audiences as it belongs to one of the most interesting aspects of theater in Europe. Due to its originality, wit, expression, and inimitable communicativeness, Puppet Theater carries meaning and continues to be an absolutely indispensable part of our cultural life. The history and origins of the National Museum and its Theater Collection holdings provide some context for the way the objects in this exhibition made their way to the Columbus Museum of Art. Information regarding the National Museum and the breadth of the Theater Collection is available in Appendix A on page 86 of this catalog.

We are very pleased to be a part of this exhibit of Czech puppets at the Columbus Museum of Art. And we look forward to welcoming visitors from Ohio to our collections at the National Museum in Prague.

Sincerely,

Dr.Vlasta Koubská

Head of the Theater Department of the National Museum (until 2012)

Translated by Kateřina Jenčová Hipská

Edited by: Joseph Brandesky

STRINGS ATTACHED

THE LIVING TRADITION OF CZECH PUPPETS

By Joseph Brandesky

The development of the idea for this exhibit was years in the making. After working on three Czech theater design focused exhibitions, threads—strings if you will—started to appear between Czech puppets and other media, notably theater and film. While the original idea was sited specifically in a small central European country, it became clear that contemporary American filmmakers such as Tim Burton and The Brothers Quay shared an affinity with Czech stop action filmmakers, including Jan Švankmajer and Jiři Trnka; both of the latter began as puppeteers and their films show clear connections to the world of Czech puppets. Thus, the strings of influence and lines of development of Czech puppets overlap. Despite the fact that contemporary theater artists and filmmakers around the world frequently avoid the use of stringed puppets—marionettes—the influence of the ideas of techniques developed in the past remain vivid and viable.

Jan Švankmajer, Androgyn, 1990.

Photo: Vojtěch Brtnický

This exhibition traces the development of puppets in the Czech homeland. The panorama of Czech puppetry is made clear by Nina Malíková’s (Curator of the Czech Puppet