PRAGUE.- A new permanent exhibition presents a selection of approximately 520 works of art from the National Gallery Prague’s rich Collection of Asian Art. Artefacts from Asia and the Islamic world created over a period of 5,000 years are contextualised with cultural links to Central Europe. The exhibition also includes information about the acquisition of the works and tells the stories of important collectors. The exhibition is accompanied by an audio guide, an extensive catalogue and a children’s book. More demanding visitors and researchers can also take advantage of a printed guide to the exhibition. Younger visitors can enjoy the Children’s Circuit and the Studio, an interactive space for play, creativity and meditation.

Since the Collection of Asian Art relocated to the Salm Palace in 2020, a site-specific libretto tailored to the intricacies of its historic interior has gradually taken shape. Across 24 rooms, visitors will encounter art from Japan, Korea, China, Tibet, South and Southeast Asia and the Islamic cultural area.

Roughly ten years in the making, the new exhibition contains two main parts. The first presents the cultural and historical context, focusing on Central Europeans’ encounter with Asia and the Islamic world as expressed in the art collecting and trade of the time and reflected in Czech visual art. Individual rooms shed light on Czech responses to Asian exhibits at World’s Fairs in the nineteenth century, Prague’s well-known trade in goods from “the Orient”, “oriental” salons in aristocratic interiors and significant Czech collectors, including orientalists, artists and industrialists such as Vojtěch Lanna, Alois Musil, Bedřich Hrozný, Joe Hloucha, Josef Martínek and Vojtěch Chytil. Asian inspirations in Czech visual art are also addressed, including the influence of orientalism and interpretations by modern artists (e.g. Emil Filla).

The second part of the exhibition presents works from the NGP’s collections created over a period of 5,000 years. The items exhibited, which represent just 4% of the Collection of Asian Art, include a Chinese container from the third millennium BCE, masterful Chinese ink paintings from the twentieth century and Japanese calligraphy from the twenty-first century. Organised thematically, the works introduce visitors to spiritual traditions, writing and calligraphy, decor and ornamentation and the work of people and nature across diverse Asian cultures. The rarest artefacts in this section include a Chinese porcelain bowl from the fifteenth-century Ming Dynasty and a fifteenth-century Persian manuscript of the Qur’an.

The Art of Asia Across Space and Time | National Gallery Prague exhibition complements the history of art collecting and cultural history in Bohemia from the seventeenth to the mid-twentieth century, when the Collection of Asian Art was established at the NGP in 1951. Each item has its provenance, which allows us to discover the diverse stories of individual collectors and understand the context in which the collection of Asian and Islamic art took shape against the backdrop of Czech history.

The exhibition contains several layers of information – from simple captions on the exhibited works and audiovisual elements to guides with navigational maps and more detailed information for researchers or visitors seeking deeper engagement. Guides will also be available to download on the exhibition website. For children and their parents, the NGP has prepared a Children’s Circuit with stops scattered throughout the exhibition. A QR code allows everyone to access a dramatic audio guide through the exhibition. The exhibition also includes an interactive Studio: a space for play, creativity and meditation. An extensive catalogue bearing the exhibition’s name The Art of Asia Across Space and Time and a publication for children, Great and Small Beauties of Asian Art are also available.

Most of the exhibited items have been restored and, thanks to the painstaking work of over two dozen restorers over a year and a half, the exhibited objects have literally come to life. The NGP’s restoration team, working in collaboration with external restorers, has carried out extraordinary work across disciplines, restoring artefacts made of various materials – from metal, wood, stone and ceramics to painting, prints and textiles. In creating the exhibition, the NGP collaborated with other institutions and specialists, such as the Department of Nuclear Reactors at the Czech Technical University in Prague’s Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering (FJFI) to research the content of Tibetan statues with the help of the modern method of neutron tomography.