Culture Minister Marek Maďarič decided to reverse a grant of €5000 for organisers of an exhibition in which they placed the flag of the Czech Republic on the ground, as part of their art.
The artist Dalibor Bača held an exhibition in Kosice in April of this year called Private Nationalism which presented a large Czechoslovak flag, which is the same as the contemporary Czech flag, on the ground of the gallery. Bača claims he used a historical Czechoslovak flag from before the year 1993 in order to express the idea that Czechoslovakia as a state was defeated by two nationalisms. As the flag was on the ground, visitors to the gallery were forced to think about how they wanted to behave towards the symbol of the defeated state, Bača reasoned. Photographs of the exhibition and the flag made their way to the Czech ambassador to Slovakia, Livia Klausova who saw the art as a means of making a door mat out of the Czech national symbol. Klausova officially protested against this exhibition to all institutions which supported it. Among them was also the Slovak Culture Ministry which decided to reverse the aid granted to the exhibition. “The Culture Ministry does not deprive anyone of the right to consider placing a national flag on the ground as art. However, at the same time, we have the right to not financially support a project which disrupts our good diplomatic relations with the Czech Republic” stated the Ministry’s spokesperson.
The artists’ community took a strong reaction to this decision of Culture Minister Madarič and decided to exhibit a replica of the artwork of Dalibor Bača for one day, on 25th June, in 15 galleries across the Czech Republic and Slovakia. More than 70 representatives of the artists’ community signed a statement condemning the decision of the Slovak Culture Ministry and expressing solidarity with the artist.
