ART(IST) TEACHER

ART(IST) TEACHER

September 25 – October 17, 2025, Pitevna Gallery, Brno

In the title of the exhibition, we identify artists and teachers, teachers of art, and, with
a little help from German, we also identify the assertion that art is a teacher. All of thi
is meant to suggest, even though art history does not emphasize it, that the roles of
artist and teacher have always been closely related.

Even in ancient times, artists trained their successors in their workshops. With the
advent of the modern era, this professional training became institutionalized, art
academies appeared, and with them, academicism and academics. A little later, with
the development of general education, the position of drawing teachers and later art
teachers emerged, who in some cases were also artists. Finally, in relatively recent
times, the dual role of artist and teacher has begun to be discussed from yet another
perspective. In connection with reflections on how to make art a more relevant social
force, these two positions have more or less merged in some projects. Authors, as a
kind of artist-educators, often operating outside the realm of formal education and
focusing on target groups other than the usual ones, experiment with alternative,
processual, cooperative, and interdisciplinary strategies. Their goal is to develop
natural, open, and democratic knowledge.

These and many other positions of artists and teachers in one person naturally
generate a number of specific experiences, questions, and problems, which have
become the theme and challenge of this exhibition. The participating authors
undoubtedly have something to say about them. They gained their experience first
from the perspective of pupils and then students of art schools, and today many of
them work as teachers and, as active members of the art scene, reflect on current
discussions devoted to the relationship between art and education. This has also
meant that they have filled the curatorial framework with a rich mixture in which a
wide variety of perspectives, themes, and strategies come together in a stimulating
way. Nevertheless, they can apparently be divided into two basic categories. On the
one hand, there are critical reflections that ask us questions such as: What is
knowledge itself? To what extent are the categories we operate with valid and
applicable? Can our traditional academic practices really open up space for true
knowledge? How do the roles examined, in both a positive and negative sense,
influence their bearers? Another group consists of documentation and objects that
present various educational and research practices. They are original, experimental,
and current, and in accordance with Joseph Beuys’ statements, we can consider
them an integral part of the artistic activity of their initiators and participants. The
photograph documenting the courageous struggle of Serbian students for freedom
and justice can be seen as a kind of full stop, or rather an exclamation mark, to the
entire exhibition. In these times of many crises, it reminds us that knowledge also
entails the acceptance of personal responsibility. It is precisely this that I would like to
highlight, along with open-mindedness, creativity, imagination, and the ability to listen
and share, as an important link between the roles of artist and teacher, or art and
education.

Ondřej Navrátil

Participating Artists:
Mirjana Blagojev, Serbia.
Manuel Bru, Spain.
Natalia Brzezińska, Poland.
Beatriz Castro, Spain.
Cecilia Eguiburu, Spain.
Juan Manuel García, Spain.
Reyes González, Spain.
Vladimír Havlík, Czech Republic.
Tomasz Kalitko, Poland.
Petr Kovář, Czech Republic.
Željko Mandić, Serbia.
Jesús Montoya, Spain.
Laura Murcia, Spain.
Ondřej Navrátil, Czech Republic.
Františka Orságová, Czech Republic.
Antonia Pujol, Spain.
Carmen Ruiz de Almirón, Spain.
Agustín Sánchez, Italy.
Maite Segués, Spain.
Predrag Uzelac, Serbia.
Milan Vlaški, Serbia.

Curator: Ondřej Navrátil

Participating Institutions: Academy of Arts, University of Novi Sad (Serbia);
Department of Art, Faculty of Education, Masaryk University (Czech Republic);
Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Granada (Spain); Magdalena Abakanowicz
University of the Arts (Poland); Politecnico delle Arti di Bergamo (Italy).

Collaborating Institutions in the Academy Art Gallery Interchange Network:
Academy of Arts, University of Novi Sad (Serbia); Department of Art, Faculty of
Education, Masaryk University (Czech Republic); Faculty of Arts, Universidad de la
República (Uruguay); Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Granada (Spain); Magdalena
Abakanowicz University of the Arts (Poland); Politecnico delle Arti di Bergamo (Italy);
Universidad de los Lagos (Chile).

Dates: September 26 – October 17, 2025

Venue: Pitevna Gallery, Brno, Czech Republic.