Michal Blažek

“We were a fellowship of people who’d said to themselves: ‘So as not to argue, we won’t talk about art at all.’ One person did this, the other that, and I pretty much didn’t like anything of what the others did. The one exception was Pepa Žáček, and him and I kept the whole thing up the whole time, but I did it for the others too. But the Ševčíks were focused on current trends, and they valued people who were able to spruce them up the fastest. First they brought some magazines, they said, this is how it’s done, and they lauded the artist who did it like that all the way to the heavens. I wrote about it in the tenth issue of Respekt in 1990. We built up a wide-ranging resistance against the union, and suddenly the Tvrdohlavýs withdrew and started doing exhibitions. The UVA secretary was said to have laughed with joy that we’d lost our unity.”

“When I was at grammar school, they told me they could recommend me for university only after a year of practical experience. When I tried to apply to the Academy for the third time, it didn’t seem to matter any more. I later found out why: Helsinki was being prepared, and the Communists wanted to brag at the conference that they even allowed the children of expelled party members to study. When I was accepted to the Academy on the third try, they summoned me and two friends to the student affairs department and asked: ‘Were your fathers expelled from the Party?” We tried to dodge the questions as best we could: ‘We don’t know, we’d have to ask...’ And the student coordinator said: ‘No, don’t worry! We need it, we won’t throw you out, on the contrary!’ That had me staring, how things kept changing...”