Chateau Klenová
2. 9. - 31.10. 2012

František Janula left Czechoslovakia in September 1968, immediately following the country’s occupation by the Soviet army. He left despite the fact that, at the time, he was a well-known Prague artist and did not have to worry about making a living. He decided to leave his occupied country, his villa in Černošice and his studio in Prague. In Paris, he started over from scratch, with no knowledge of the language or the local art world. As a result, Janula experienced two bohemian scenes in his life: Prague and Paris. Paris was harsher and it was not Czech, so he joined the city’s multicultural art scene, gradually beginning to hold regular exhibitions in small galleries in the Latin Quarter. He had his first solo exhibition was the same year as his emigration – 1968 – and he also exhibited alongside other young and at the time unknown painters. Most them were foreigners as well: Spanish, Portuguese, Italian. Only rarely were they French. Most of those galleries are long gone and, as a phenomenon of that particular time they exist only in the minds of those who remember them.

His first exhibition in his native country – after more than 30 years of exile – took place in the year 2000 in Pilsen’s STOP GALLERY. The exhibition was Janula’s first retrospective ever, presenting a cross-section of his work to date.

In addition to working as a painter, etcher and sculptor, František Janula is also a poet, an intellectual charmer and a profound seeker of broader cultural contexts. This year, he celebrates his 80th birthday.

Helena Fenclová – exhibition project curator