Location: Kunsthalle Praha Klárov 5 118 00, Prague 1

Description

About us

We have transformed the former Zenger Transformer Substation in the historic centre of Prague into a vibrant space open to everyone.

Our venue features three spacious gallery halls, a design shop, and a café with a terrace offering charming views of Petřín Hill and Prague Castle. Our international programme focuses on temporary exhibitions of modern and contemporary art, as well as innovative educational activities.

Our mission

We connect the Czech and international art scenes, present innovative perspectives on 20th- and 21st-century art and culture, and engage the broadest possible audience.

This is the core mission of Kunsthalle Praha, which we fulfil through our curatorial programme. Since opening in 2022, we have organised over 20 exhibitions and introduced a number of international artists to Czech audiences - many of them exhibiting in Prague for the very first time. At the same time, we have created new opportunities for local artists to present their work to wider audiences.

Why Kunsthalle?

The name Kunsthalle Praha is itself an accurate and internationally comprehensible designation of our institution. So-called kunsthalles, originating in the late 19th century, historically functioned as spaces hosting temporary exhibitions of contemporary art. Such kunsthalles can still be found all around Europe.

On the one hand, there were museums, spaces for storing and displaying collections; on the other hand, there were kunsthalles, which presented temporary exhibitions of living artists. With time, the conceptions of these two types of institutions began to merge. Accordingly, we are also building our own collection at Kunsthalle Praha, but we will not exhibit it permanently—instead, we will gradually reveal it via temporary thematic exhibitions as well as our online database.

Contemporary kunsthalles represent laboratories of critical thinking and open dialogue about relevant topics both in art and in society more broadly. The aim is not to conserve art, but rather to offer new perspectives and progressive tendencies, and to reflect on the world we live in. Moreover, we also understand this German term— “kunsthalle” — as reflective of Prague’s multicultural roots as a city of three nations, two languages, and a unique charm.

Throughout the 19th and first half of the 20th century, Prague was an important cultural crossroads within Europe, partly due to the coexistence of Czechs, Germans and the Jewish community. We considered it important to retain the German term “kunsthalle” and naturally connect it to the name of the Czech capital city. We see this as a kind of signal for us to collectively become aware of this crucial and still deeply inspirational part of our own history. That is why Kunsthalle Praha.