Revelatio. Arbor vitae / Martin Souček

The exhibition "Revelatio. Arbor vitae" at the Olomouc Museum of Art draws on Martin Souček's art collection. Photo: MUO – Zdeněk Sodoma

It was Souček’s collection of books and artworks that inspired the Revelatio exhibition, a tribute to the publisher, collector, and poet on his 60th birthday last year. After stops in Cheb and Náchod, where the publishing house was founded in the early 1990s, the exhibition is moving to the Olomouc Museum of Art.

This latest stop is no coincidence – in the past, the Arbor vitae publishing house has contributed its books to a number of major projects that have taken place in Olomouc over the past twenty years. Representative publications were created, for example, for the exhibitions Mysterious Distances: Symbolism in the Czech Lands 1880–1914 (2014) and Years of Disarray 1908–1928. Avant-gardes in the Central Europe (2018). “I resist publishing catalogs. I always want the result of our collaboration to be a book that outlives the exhibition. I really want our books to be the missing piece in the mosaic of art history and to have universal validity,” says Martin Souček about his publishing activities.

Martin Souček himself has something like perfect pitch for the medium of books. Arbor vitae publishes not only beautiful and sophisticated books, but also groundbreaking ones. These include a publication devoted to Czech Germans, Young Lions in a Cage (2013), the monumental History of Art in the Czech Lands 800–2000 (2017), published in collaboration with the Institute of Art History of the Czech Academy of Sciences, The End of the Avant-Garde (2011), mapping Czech art from the Munich Agreement to the communist coup, and more recently So Close, So Far (2023), which follows on from the 1950s. Visitors will also see the publishing house’s current production, which includes, for example, Prague Anthroposophical Modernism 1907–1953 and this year’s publication on Czech artist Vojtěch Preissig.

The exhibition also offers a cross-section of the book collection that demonstrates Souček’s passion for bibliophilia. “I have been collecting books, or more precisely, books have been collecting me, for almost 45 years. In addition to bibliophilia, you will find modest but very rare prints by forgotten poets, graphic albums, and, last but not least, handwritten and illustrated prayer books in this small section of the library,” describes Martin Souček. “What I know for sure is that without the library, I would not be an art collector or a publisher.”

FRIENDS – ART BRUT – AFRICA

The exhibition presents personalities with whom the publisher came into close contact while preparing catalogs and monographs (Rudolf Dzurko, Marie Blabolilová, Jan Hísek), but also circles corresponding to the Arbor vitae books. These include symbolism (noteworthy are two extraordinary early paintings by Alfons Mucha from his French period), the art of Czech Germans, surrealism, and art brut.

Thanks to the larger exhibition space in Olomouc, visitors can look forward to an expansion of all chapters of the exhibition. Some aspects are also linked to the local art scene. “For example, the art brut section will be strengthened, which has a long exhibition tradition here thanks to curator Anežka Šimková. She participated, for example, in another key joint project, Art brut in the Czech Lands. Mediumici, Solitaires, Psychotics (2008),” said exhibition author Marcel Fišer, director of the Gallery of Fine Arts in Cheb.

And there will be one more small but very interesting novelty in the Museum of Art compared to previous exhibitions—Benin bronzes. These unique sculptures stand out from the tribal art of the rest of Africa in terms of both their material and their representative function.

ACCOMPANYING PUBLICATION

The accompanying book to the exhibition, written in the form of memoirs, contains Martin Souček’s recollections, contributions from many of his friends, and a large number of documentary photographs. Many of them, reminiscent of Souček’s studio in Řevnice near Prague, filled with art and books in picturesque creative chaos, were created especially for this occasion by Jan Havel, a long-time collaborator of the publishing house. He also designed the book, congenially connecting with the charismatic personality of its protagonist.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)