Festival 2023
4 + 4 Days in Motion
28TH International festival of contemporary art
11–21/5 2023, Praha – Erpet Smíchov
FESTIVAL PROGRAM
Press release 17. 4.
4 + 4 Days in Motion to open Erpet Center at Smíchov to the public for the last time
The 4 + 4 Days in Motion festival continues its 28th mission to enter the unusual and abandoned spaces in Prague and bring them back to life for at least a few days. Just like last year, it will be located at the Erpet Center at Smíchov, but for the first time from 11 to 21 May. Then the former sports center from the 1980s is going to be demolished – you now have no excuse to visit it along with 4 + 4 Days!
There will be plenty of opportunities, such as the contemporary art exhibition Places of Acts: Everything’s Everyone’s and the supporting program for all generations. Sunday 13 May will see the 4 + 4 + 1 Music Night, which starts at 7 p.m. and features Sad Linguini, Vyktoryja, Dukla Vinohrady and Časovač bands. On Sunday 14 May, children can enjoy Veronika Vlková and Robert Smolík’s fairy tale Visit. The attractive spring date allows the visitors of the festival to experience original outdoor activities. The Night at Erpet on Saturday 20 May will see the program with lectures on weeds, herbs, water, and nature in the city, joint exercise, walks, barbecue, sleeping in tents on the meadow by the river, and the final breakfast on Sunday. The visitors can also enjoy a special experimental set designed for 4 + 4 Days – the selection of Vladimir 518’s solo albums vs. Architect, Idiot, Ultra!Ultra!, and much more. The event on 21 May will be introduced by the launch of Krištof Kintera’s new BIGBOSS book.
The premises of the former Erpet sports center, which was used as a golf simulator and a restaurant, is surrounded by a court, football field, and a garden with pools, and will be available both indoors and outdoors. The main indoor program of 4 + 4 Days in Motion is Denisa Václavová and Jiří Ptáček’s exhibition Everyhing’s Everybody’s, which will be open every day. “With the exhibition, we want to occupy the position based on the growing awareness of the interconnectedness and complexity of processes and systems we are part of. Art that overcomes isolation, contains grains of idealism as well as possibilities rather than impossibility. Art that overcomes futility, but does not deny the anxiety, uncertainty, and fears,” says Jiří Ptáček, the author, who has been engaged in contemporary art for more than two decades.
One part of this year’s festival program is a series of lectures from 15 to 19 May and is an introduction to the group project My Shoes, Your Shoes. It will be implemented in 2024 in Prague and Čáslav. The topics of the lectures are Transgenerational Trauma Transmission (lecturer doc. PhDr. Marek Preiss, Ph.D.), Brain Frozen in Pain (lecturer MUDr. Peter Pöthe), Aggression (lecturer PhDr. Michael Šebek), Fear (lecturer Mgr. Jan J. Ženatý). Lectures and groups that follow are freely accessible to anybody upon registration on the website.
Students of basic and high schools can become part of the project designed by the Do You Have a Knack for Art? Project. There are traditionally many people who want to participate in educational programs, guided tours, and workshops. Both children and teachers are amused as is demonstrated by the response of a teacher from ZŠ Letohradská last year: “Our tour through Erpet with nine-graders made my day. The link between contemporary art and an abandoned sports hall made us think: who used it before and how did they feel there? Is it the exhibited contemporary art or is it part of the facilities? You can stop and think about every piece and contemplate the connection between space and work. Everything communicates perfectly. The final quest in searching for common features in art and sports was just the icing on the cake. Thank you for the whole class!”
The autum part of the 4+4 Days in Motion festival – PERFORMANCE, specializing in the presentation of premieres od dance and theatre companies, as well as international and Czech site-specific projects, is going to take place from 6 to 14 October in the Archa Theatre, Ponec Theatre, X10 Theatre, Studio Hrdinů, and public spaces in Prague.
FESTIVAL PROGRAM
Supported by: hlavní město Praha, Ministry of Culture CR, In-Situ, Creative Europe Programme of the European Union, Městská část Praha 5
Media partners: Radio 1, Fotograf, Culturenet, ArtMap, Artalk, Kino Aero, Kino Světozor, Bio Oko, FlashArt
In cooperation: Sebre, Fogidesign, Stagelab, Tajpej Design, Máš umělecké střevo, Cinergy
Service for media: 2media.cz, s.r.o.
Simona Andělová, simona@2media.cz, tel.: +420 775 112857
