The monographic exhibition ESTER KRUMBACHOVÁ presents the artist's estate, which has been inaccessible for twenty years. Ester Krumbachová (1923–1996) worked as a theater designer from 1953, first in České Budějovice and later in Prague. She contributed to many notable films of the Czech New Wave (Diamonds of the Night, Daisies, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, The Ear, etc.). In 1970, she made her only film, The Murder of Ing. Čert. After 1972, she was banned from participating in feature films and television productions. She only occasionally collaborated with Krátký film Praha, film studios outside Prague, and participated in several foreign productions. She managed to circumvent the ban in 1983, when she and Věra Chytilová made the film Faunovo velmi pozdní odpoledne (Faun's Very Late Afternoon). After 1990, she was able to return to filmmaking; her last work was as dramaturge, set designer, and costume designer for the film Marian (1996). Ester Krumbachová is one of the key figures of Czech culture in the second half of the 20th century; her distinctive literary style and original artistic language shaped the visual, dramaturgical, and directorial form of a number of Czech films and plays and influenced many other artists. Nevertheless, her work has not yet been presented in a comprehensive manner to Czech or foreign audiences, partly because her estate was only recently discovered.
The exhibition is not a historical cross-section of Ester Krumbachová's work (although it does reflect it), but rather an extensive network of original material, numerous texts, images, and artifacts that Krumbachová dealt with and surrounded herself with throughout her life. It primarily presents Ester Krumbachová's archive/estate in thematically interconnected blocks, revealing her thinking about costume design, particularly the role of detail and the use of color, the interconnection of meaning, artistic form, and the overall atmosphere of a film, her work with text that copies spoken language and folk storytelling rather than high literary style, her relationship to magic, realism, subjectivity, male and female polarity, and the hierarchy of species and social and professional positions. On display are her paintings and drawings, costume designs, jewelry, letters to friends (and cats), diaries, and private photographs. The exhibition is thus both a reflection of the influences and themes of the time and a colorful universe of multi-layered and highly original thinking. It offers a glimpse into the semi-public privacy of the artist, into her numerous creative and other struggles (in an unfree era). To a limited extent, it also presents a selection of her works and excerpts from films in which she participated. The exhibition will include a screening of Ester Krumbachová's only feature film, The Murder of Ing. Čert, and a documentary film by Věra Chytilová, Searching for Ester, featuring memories of many of her friends.
The archive also appears as a series of notes and sketches that remain unfinished and open-ended. The exhibition therefore aims not only to highlight the interdisciplinary nature of Krumbachová's work, but also to present her work and way of thinking as a vibrant, dynamic, and inspiring environment for contemporary artists, designers, theorists, and historians of culture and art. For this reason, the curatorial view of Ester Krumbachová's work is constructed from today's perspective. In addition to Krumbachová's involvement in many areas connecting film, literature, fine and applied arts, her way of thinking strikingly gives rise to themes that have only fully developed in our time. The methods Krumbachová used to influence key moments and the form of films from various positions (screenwriter, costume designer, director) are, for example, more clearly revealed when applying current gender and media theories. This contemporary perspective is also reflected in the fact that the exhibition was prepared in collaboration with several contemporary artists who interpret Ester Krumbachová's work and personality or apply similar approaches in their own work—for example, they reflect on today's positions on feminism, animal rights, plants, and other entities, ways of depicting them, culture, fashion, methods working with the inseparable intertwining of content and form of expression, or methods of directing in the broadest sense of the word.
The historical material is therefore complemented by several interventions by contemporary artists. The architecture of the exhibition itself, designed by Jakub Červenka from the Objektor architectural studio, lends it a contemporary feel. Artists directly enter the exhibition, developing the work of Ester Krumbachová – specifically, photographs by Libuše Jarcovjáková, taken in Ester Krumbachová's apartment during her lifetime, are on display; Jiří Kovanda's installation responding to Ester Krumbachová's interspecies shared apartment; Marek Meduna's series of videos inspired by the archive and the film Vražda Ing. Čerta (The Murder of Ing. Čert); David Fesl's work referring to Ester Krumbachová's texts and jewelry; a series of photographs by Daniela and Linda Dostálková that blur the boundaries between fashion and art photography and deal with the issue of the hierarchy of individual realms (human, animal, plant); similarly, these levels are also connected in the magical objects of Anna-Marie Berdychová, which resemble the artistic crafts of jewelry making and glassmaking; Jan Boháč and Anna Ročnová have incorporated plants into the exhibition that also belonged to Ester Krumbachová's circle of friends. Foreign artists have also been involved in the artistic research of Krumbachová's work and archive: Beca Libscombe, in collaboration with the graphic design studio HIT, Morwenna Kearsley, Bernie Reid, and Laura Richmond, have prepared a series of posters from Ester Krumbachová's wardrobe to promote the exhibition to the public. The New Noveta collective will open the exhibition with a new performance based on a study of Krumbach's films and archive, with a sound installation by musician David Aird aka Vindicatrix and costumes from the Bâba Studio. The exhibition also includes a performance by Jiří Kovanda and a staged reading by Kateřina Konvalinová, directed in collaboration with Viktorie Vášová, who adapted the script for Ester Krumbachová and Věra Chytilová's Sedmikrásky II (Daisies II), found in the estate.
The exhibition project was prepared in conjunction with a monographic publication and the open online Ester Krumbachová Archive, three interconnected outputs that culminate four years of critical analysis of the artist's work. Since 2016, this research has been accompanied by various artistic and theoretical formats (exhibitions, performances, conferences, books, curated screenings), which, since the beginning of the research, have opened up the work of this key figure of the Czechoslovak New Wave to various interpretations and made it accessible to experts and the general public both at home and abroad. They aim to fill one of the gaps in the history of costume design, Czech and Czechoslovak film, and art in general. Ester Krumbachová's legacy represents a relatively comprehensive record of her life's work and demonstrates the author's holistic thinking, which is still open to future creative generations. Only thanks to the various levels of the archive is it possible to present the "gray eminence" of Czech film, a personality brimming with ideas and a desire to experiment; to show the tension between creativity and individuality at the time; to see her work and the films of the New Wave in the context of the suppression of creative and personal freedom by the official state apparatus, which demanded standardization and conformity; to connect the past and the present and open up many topics that are still relevant today.
Visitors can encounter the work of this underappreciated artist, who influenced the Czech New Wave, learn about her works dedicated to cats and other animals, and even find a four-legged companion in this interspecies atmosphere, whose godmother is Ester Krumbachová. She herself took care of stray cats, which enjoyed her renowned care and love in varying numbers at her apartment at Za Zelenou liškou. The cats in this exhibition are not exhibits, but they expand the scope of the art exhibition to include another ethical aspect that was important in the artist's life. Although the inclusion of animals in a human exhibition remains problematic, the curators and institutions are taking this risk in the belief that it is possible to cross the boundaries of taste for the good life of our non-human friends in need.
