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The International Artists’ Committee IKG will meet from September 30th to October 3rd 2021 in the Czech Republic in the House of Arts in Brno https://www.dum-umeni.cz/en/
Conference | Exhibition | Guided tours and annual meeting

For the author Peter Härtling, Brno is the city that in his mind becomes the epitome of all cities, has not been replaced by any other even later, with its squares and parks widened by children’s eyes Brno stands up to Prague, Vienna, Berlin, Paris or London.

And it was here in beautiful Brno that our 2021 annual meeting was held. Mainly due to the great support of Terezie Petišková and her team from the House of Arts Brno, we were able to realize a multifarious program. There was a guided tour of the fabulous Villa Tugendhat and an architectural tour of the city. 

The artist Barbora Klímová presented her project REPLACED BRNO 2006 in the studio of Dalibor Chatrný, which dealt with performances in public space of the 70s and 80s in a kind of memory work and brought this past actions together with the changed reality of today.

At our small conference we heard a very instructive lecture by Terezie Petišková and Jana Vránová on the history of the House of Art in Brno. 

The subsequent, immensely stimulating presentation by Martin Zet THE SCULPTURER MILOŠ ZET – WALLS, SOCKELS AND MODELS was also about history and memory. Zet dedicated an exhibition of the same name to his father’s work: memory itself is the best defense against suppressed memory.

And of course there was again our already traditional nimble pop-up exhibition with many pedestals and therefore under the motto 1000 PLATEAUS in the foyer of the Haus der Kunst.  Käthe Kruse and Valerian Maly/Klara Schilliger enlivened the opening with their performances.    The title is of course also homage to Deleuze/Guattari and their nomadic philosophy, which places plurality and heterogeneity instead of single-minded hierarchy. Here it is about an in-between, about manifold cross-connections, about webs and networks – and that fits quite well with the IKG.

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The International Artists’ Committee IKG supports the network ARC AtRiskArtists, which campaigns for the interests of art actors worldwide. More and more artists are not allowed to work freely due to the political or social situation in their countries. They risk their livelihood or even their existence, are persecuted or raped. Many are on the run or imprisoned or are not allowed to leave their country. Covid 19 also exacerbates this situation, with several governments using the pandemic to reinforce authoritarian, illiberal structures. Moreover, there is no protection against infection in prisons.
Please check out this important page: https://artistsatriskconnection.org/guide

IKG – International Committee of Artists

The International Artists Forum/IKG is appalled and shocked by the unprecedented excesses of violence by the Belarusian security apparatus after the election Sunday on August 9. Thousands of people were arrested, inhumanely treated and maltreated in captivity – since then there has been no trace of many of them.
Despite the brutal violence and arbitrary arrests of more than 7000 people thus far, with which the autocratic president of Belarus has reacted to the peaceful protests against his re-election, people are overcoming their fear and proving that the desire for freedom can no longer be suppressed, in a civil movement that is very broad by now.  For decades, freedom of speech, art and press was suppressed in Belarus. Today, the people who were not allowed to say what they want for 26 years are demonstrating. As a reaction to this self-empowerment, resistance is being silenced, killed. Only with the means of his repressive police state does Aljaksandr Lukaschenka still hold on to power.
The freedom of art, which the IKG advocates, has always been the measure of democratic freedom. Human dignity, culture, an open society and democracy are closely linked. The confiscation of entire collections, the blocking of the Internet, the suppression of free, even artistic, creativity are symptoms of barbaric narrow-mindedness, with the fear of humane potential breathing down their necks.
Today, when many of the brave demonstrators wear the confiscated painting EVA by Chaim Sutin on their T-shirts, art becomes visible as a persistent analogy to freedom: in art, the possibility of self-realization crystallizes into form.  The Belarusians can no longer be deceived and intimidated.
The IKG supports the democracy movement in Belarus and the demand for the resignation of Alexander Lukashenka. We condemn the violence and the suppression of human rights and appeal to those in power to recognize the signs of the times, to end the repression and to finally make free, fair and transparent elections in Belarus possible.

For the IKG: Dr. Dorothée Bauerle-Willert, President