THE MORAVIAN GALLERY IN 2005 (The full text of the 2005 Annual Report of the Moravian Gallery in Brno is available at the gallery website www.moravska-galerie.cz). In 2005, the Moravian Gallery in Brno definitively set on the course towards operating a fully functional museum of art with activities at all levels being capable of meeting the challenges encountered at the beginning of the 21st century. These include, first and foremost, the distribution and precise definition of the functions that the institution is to provide to the community: specifically, the protection, carefully thought-out extension and presentation of the collections; fulfilling the particular role of the museum in research; presenting the cultural heritage and knowledge to visitors as well as maintaining broad communication with the public at all levels (educational, social, entertainment). Alongside the launching of long-term system changes, the year 2005 was also marked by a search for new human resources and new partners in the private domain who could identify with the overall aims of the Moravian Gallery in Brno in the years to come, notwithstanding the demands of day-to-day work. By appointing PhDr. Filip Suchomel, an expert of international renown on Japanese art, to the position of chief curator, the Moravian Gallery in Brno succeeded in resolving the temporary makeshift arrangement whereby the gallery director also took full responsibility for the research agenda. A new department of external communications was established with the task of providing the marketing and public relations activities of the museum. After extensive discussions in the course of the year the management proposed a restructuring scheme in the autumn aiming at simplifying and clarifying the organizational structure of the gallery with the most acutely needed change being the concentration of administrative work at a new workplace – the collection registry. Following intensive communication with the Czech Ministry of Culture in 2005, a final decision was taken regarding the building of a new repository of the Moravian Gallery in Brno the parameters of which would meet international standards. Luckily, a site for the repository was acquired in the precinct of the former army barracks in Brno–Řečkovice and the investment proposal was registered with the Czech Ministry of Finance. According to the schedule the construction should be completed in 2008 with a significant part of the collections of the Moravian Gallery in Brno planned to be transferred by the end of the same year. The acquisition activities of the Moravian Gallery in Brno depend on obtaining special funding from the programmes of the Czech Ministry of Culture as acquisition funds from the gallery budget are permanently insufficient. The limited resources adversely affect the opportunities for extending the collections and a systematic approach to purchases is near to impossible under the present circumstances. It is a problem faced by all the museums and galleries in the Czech Republic in general and finding a solution to the problem is one of the perennial priorities in the discussions held within the Moravian Gallery in Brno. In spite of the above, in 2005 the collections were enriched by important acquisitions, those of special prominence being the first part of the legacy of the photographer Jan Svoboda, oil paintings by Ignác Viktorin Raab and Johann Ludwig Ernst Morgenstern, posters by František Kysela or works from the legacy of Antonín Jero and Miloš Slovák. Many new arrivals were acquired as gifts. The year 2005 in the Moravian Gallery in Brno saw a number of important projects and exhibitions which appealed to the public. A landmark for the photography collection was the organization of two exhibitions drawing on exhibits from the museum’s own collections. The monographic approach to presenting the work of the Prague German photographer Grete Popper and that of Franz Fiedler, whose studio had its roots in the end of the 19th century, was the culmination of many years of research by Antonín Dufek. Both exhibitions, 1 repeatedly shown by institutions at home and abroad, were accompanied by publications which received the Photographic Publication Award, 2005. The exhibition Useful and Beautiful. Silver in Vienna and the Habsburg Monarchy in 1780–1920, taking stock of and classifying material from the collections of the Moravian Gallery in Brno could not have taken place without a grant by the Czech Ministry of Culture, as was the case with two exhibitions mentioned above. It was also accompanied by a scientific catalogue. An equally important undertaking was the first retrospective of the painter Jan Merta, an artist until then known only to the cognoscenti, re-shown at the East Bohemian Gallery in Pardubice. It was this monographic exhibition which lay behind the awarding of the Personality of Year 2005 Award being given to Jan Merta by experts, traditionally announced by the Galerie Klatovy/Klenová. In 2005, the Moravian Gallery in Brno organized two important presentations of contemporary Welsh art as an expression of its orientation to analogical cultural enclaves in Europe. A solo exhibition by the Welsh artist Peter Finnemore, who in the same year represented his country at the Venice Biennale, and a group project Flourish/Art from Wales were supported by the British Council in Prague, Wales Arts International and the Czech Ministry of Culture. The projects taken over from other institutions and favourably received by the public included a retrospective of Václav Špála. Between the Avant-garde and Livelihood, the exhibition Skála v Morgalu or the first large presentation of the work of Milan Knížák in Brno since 1989. Exhibitions of graphic design staged by the graphic design collection team for the “Ambit” of the Governor’s Palace of the Moravian Gallery in Brno are very successful as is the re-focused programme of presentations of the youngest generation of artists in the Atrium of the Pražák Palace which is now on a firm footing and has received the recognition it deserves. The Moravian Gallery in Brno continued, in 2005, its international collaboration schemes using European Union grants. The Message of Colours, Shape and Thoughts… project had won a grant from the European Commission within the Culture 2000 programme and was also supported by funding from the Czech Ministry of Culture. This project, undertaken in collaboration with the National Gallery in Budapest and the Federal Heritage Protection Office in Vienna, focused on the rescue and restoration of the remarkable Church of the Whipped Saviour in Dyje near Znojmo as unique evidence of the exceptional artistic invention of F. A. Maulbertsch and the artists from his circle. Results of the research were presented at the international conference Baroque Mural Painting in Central Europe taking place in Brno and Prague. Restoration work in the Dyje church is to be continued in 2006. Yet another outcome of the project is a multi-lingual monograph identifying the place of this monument in the broad European context. Abroad, the Moravian Gallery was successfully presented by re-showing some of its exhibitions: The World of Stars and Illusions. Czech Film Poster in the 20th Century and Stefan Sagmeister – A Rebel in Graphic Design were introduced in Bratislava, while the former was later also on show in Munich. Grete Popper – Photographs from the Inter-war Period was reprised in Berlin. The gallery contributed by loaning items to several exhibitions, among others, to the prestigious exhibition Prague, The Crown of Bohemia 1347–1437, taking place in the autumn of 2005 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Discussions, initiated by the Czech Ministry of Culture, with the town of Brtnice and the Museum of Decorative Arts in Vienna concerning the taking over of responsibility for managing the Native House of Josef Hoffmann in Brtnice continued throughout 2005. The interest on the part of the Moravian Gallery in Brno regarding this outstanding heritage monument springs from its endeavour to capture the complexity of art culture, including the care for architectural heritage and as a natural consequence of seeking long-term collaboration with prominent institutions from abroad. Similar reasons underlined the declaration of the gallery’s interest in acquiring the villa that Dušan Samo Jurkovič designed for himself in Brno–Žabovřesky. It is appreciated that the gallery’s efforts are positively received and find support on the part of its founder. 2 An important turning point in the process of reinforcing the position of the Moravian Gallery in Brno was its closely working together with excellent graphic designers building on the experience in this art culture domain from organizing the International Biennale of Graphic Design. The collaborators included, for example, Rostislav Vaněk, Robert V. Novák, Alan Záruba, Radim Peško and Adam Macháček. This is clearly one of the reasons behind the success of the Moravian Gallery in Brno in the Most Beatiful Books of 2005 competition, claiming two first prizes and having another publication short-listed. After the surprisingly good result of the first Museum Night in 2004 the Moravian Gallery in Brno was joined by other Brno museums with the aim of preparing together the Museum Night 2005, which met with extraordinary public success. Alongside the celebration of the International Museums Day, this new and attractive form of approaching members of the public who find their way to a museum or gallery only with difficulty provided an opportunity to parade the awareness of the unity of the cultural institutions (irrespective of the fact that they might have a different founder) and their ability to efficiently work together. From the total number of fifty thousand participants, more than ten thousand visited the Moravian Gallery in Brno. The key problem, which cannot be resolved by the Moravian Gallery in Brno alone, and which becomes more and more acute every year, is the pending reconstruction of the Governor’s Palace as the site of the collection and permanent exhibition of Old Masters and by its location and historical value a landmark on the cultural map of Brno.