BBLA Newsletter APRIL 2017 | Issue No. 52
|
A set of 24-foot structures, the Jan Palach Memorial, designed by John Hejduk installed at Cooper Park. On view until June 11.
|
|
Dear Friends of BBLA,
No April Fool's Day tricks so the following observations are for real.
BBLA Entertainment Committee fooled no one by staging our Bohemian Bash - our former annual Beseda Ball - exactly on April 1. The dance brought possibly the largest crowd to the Bohemian National Hall with very few souls indeed calling prior to the event to make sure it was truly happening.
I want to use this opportunity to thank the organizers again for their top-notch job. I also would like to thank our amazing Standa "Luciano" Kotyza for his incredible performance: I do wish I could ever sing like him!
Bohemian Bash 2017. Photograph by Danny Boruta.
This month also brings dance to the silver screens of the Museum of Modern Art where the irresistible Oldrich Novy will yet again seduce Adina Mandlova in
Kristian - one of the most beloved evergreens of Czech cinema. MoMA and the National Film Archive pulled their resources together to
present to New Yorkers the jewels of early Czechoslova cinema. Fans of comedies and sparkly gowns will not be disappointed. Not to be missed!
Have fun and thank you all for your continuous support.
Yours,
Joseph Balaz, President
Bohemian Benevolent & Literary Association
|
|
 CHECK THIS OUT
|
BBLA ACQUIRES VOJTECH PREISSIG POSTER
by Majda Kallab Whitaker
BBLA has acquired an historic poster in marking the 100th anniversary of U.S. entry into World War I and Czechoslovak support of the allied effort. This poster is the most famous in a series of 16 color linoleum cuts produced by Vojtěch Preissig for the Wentworth Institute during World War I, calling on Czechoslovaks living in the United States to join the Czech legion fighting in Europe.
Image left: Vojtech Preissig (1873-1944), Czechoslovaks! Join Our Free Colors!, 1918, linocut on paper, published by Wentworth Institute, Boston. Courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries, New York. Image right: Bohemians at Wake Up America/Lexington Day/Patriot's Day Celebration in New York City, April 19, 1917, part of the war recruitment effort following U.S. entry into World War I. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Reproduction Number LC-DIG-ggbain-24216.
T
he
Bohemian National Hall
in New York City was an active recruitment center for Czechs and Slovaks in this period. The posters exist in different languages (Czech, Slovak and English) and formats (the images also appear on postcards). A Czech artist of great "artistic inventiveness, superb technical knowledge and masterful craftsmanship," Preissig studied at the School of Applied Arts in Prague and worked with Alphonse Mucha in Paris between 1898 and 1903. In 1910, he came to America, where he taught at Columbia University and was the director of the School of Printing and Graphic Arts at the Wentworth Institute in Boston (whose initials are printed on the poster).
|
HERE IS WHAT'S COMING IN APRIL
|
Wednesday, April 19, 7:00 PM
talk
>> Open to the public. Suggested donation $5.
The fifth edition of Czech and Slovak Academic Show & Tell. Czech and Slovak artists, professionals, students and scholars at universities and institutions in the USA are challenged to introduce the subject of their project, research or studies in a short presentation limited to six minutes. In English. Moderated by Christopher Harwood, PhD, Columbia University.
|
on view until April 24
ZDENEK LHOTSKY: DRAWINGS & GLASS
exhibition opening
venue: BBLA Gallery
Viewing hours: Monday - Friday 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM (Please note that BBLA's exhibition space is occasionally closed for events. Call 212-988-1733 to verify access.)
>> Free and open to the public.
The exhibition
Zdenek Lhotsky: Drawings & Glass presents a selection of glass objects and large drawings on paper by the leading Czech artist and designer Zdenek Lhotsky.
|
BBLA RECOMMENDS
|
opens April 5
POSTERS AND PATRIOTISM: SELLING WWI IN NEW YORK
exhibition
From the outbreak of the European conflict in 1914, however, New York had also been a city at war with itself-a place where debates about ethnic and racial loyalty, pacifism, the right to side with France, Belgium, and England or Germany, and the very meaning of patriotism spawned impassioned art for a mass audience. In rediscovering a wartime dialogue between images of conformity and dissent, Posters and Patriotism showcases over 60 examples from the World War I poster collection donated to the Museum by railroad executive and financier John W. Campbell (1880-1957) in 1943. The exhibition includes posters by Vojtech Preissig.
venue: Museum of the City of New York
(1220 Fifth Ave at 103rd Street)
|
April 11 - 23
ECSTASY AND IRONY: CZECH CINEMA, 1927-1943
films
Programmed in collaboration with the Czech National Film Archive (NFA), this program looks at the wide range of that prewar achievement, including pioneering modernist works like Premysl Prazsky's Battalion, Karl Anton's Tonka of the Gallows, Carl Junghans's Such Is Life and Vladislav Vancura's On the Sunny Side; the pointed political comedies of Voskovec and Werich; and the brilliant avant-garde work of Gustav Machaty, including the boldly symbolist Erotikon and his early sound masterpiece From Saturday to Sunday, screening here in the world premiere of a new restoration from the NFA.
venue: The Museum of Modern Art
(11 West 53 Street)
Use discount code: BBLA (applies only when tickets purchased in person at MoMA).
|
on view until April 29
HELENE BINET - JOHN HEJDUK WORKS
exhibition
The exhibition Hélène Binet - John Hejduk Works presentS seven of Hejduk's built works as photographed by Hélène Binet, a renowned London-based photographer who was Hejduk's photographer of record. The exhibition also includes a chronology of the numerous realizations of Hejduk's design for the Jan Palach Memorial, which was permanently installed in Prague in 2016. Comprised of two structures - House of the Suicide and House of the Mother of the Suicide - this work honors the Czech activist and dissident Jan Palach, whose self-immolation in protest of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 served as a galvanizing force against the communist government then in power.
venue: Arthur A. Houghton Jr. Gallery, The Cooper Union
(7 East 7th Street)
|
|
|
|
BBLA'S MEMBER
ORGANIZATIONS
|
|
Association of Free Czechoslovak Sportsmen
Czech and Slovak Solidarity Council
|
|
Bohemian Benevolent & Literary Association | 321 East 73rd Street, 3rd floor | New York, NY 10021
(212) 988-1733 | www.bohemianbenevolent.org | info@bohemianbenevolent.org
BBLA is a not-for-profit organization established in 1891 in
New York City
as an umbrella organization for almost eighty Czech and Slovak immigrant organizations. The mission of BBLA is to preserve and support Czech and Slovak culture in
New York City
. BBLA
'
s member organizations include American Fund for Czech and Slovak Leadership Studies, Association of Free Czechoslovak Sportsmen, Czech and Slovak Solidarity Council, Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences in
America
, Dvorak American Heritage Association and Sokol
New York
. BBLA is a 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization.
|
|
|
|
|
|
