States of Mind / Beyond the Image

Since 2014, the gallery´s permanent exhibition has presented Czech art of the 20th and 21st centuries from the GASK collection in a new light, with a greater emphasis on intellectual openness and making the works accessible to regular audiences. As the title States of Mind / Beyond the Image indicates, the new permanent exhibition of GASK - Gallery of the Central Bohemian Region is not a typical exhibition. Instead of an encyclopaedic sequence of works arranged in chronological order, the exhibition´s conceptual structure is based on the diverse spectrum of the emotional and mental life of humanity. The exhibition works with thematic pairs—both contradictory and complementary—that exhibited works might relate to (for instance joy/sorrow, hope/skepticism, alienation/mediation) to create a polemic space between two extremes of man’s spiritual world. The primary aim is for viewers to understand art as something that addresses the timeless planes of human existence. States of Mind / Beyond the Image presents high-quality and thought-provoking works of art taken primarly from GASK collections. The works are exhibited in the grand, spacious and elegant halls and corridors of the Jesuit College, communicating directly with their surroundings without the aid of secondary installation elements. Viewers are given the unique opportunity to experience the relation between the various exhibited works, between image and word, between the art and Baroque interiors, and last but not least (when gazing out the windows of the Jesuit College), between the exhibition spaces and the beautiful architecture and nature of Kutná Hora.