The other Arcadia Foundation, in collaboration with the Embassy of Greece in the Czech Republic, presents the group exhibition “K. or the Collective Terror of the Individual. 17 Greek Artists on Franz Kafka”, on view from May 19 to June 21 at the Clam-Gallas Palace, one of Prague’s most significant Baroque palaces.Built in the early 18th century, the Clam-Gallas Palace historically functioned as a center of social and artistic life and today operates as a dynamic cultural venue hosting exhibitions and events.Over time, the palace was also used by state authorities and is associated with Franz Kafka, who worked there as a trainee following the completion of his law studies.

The exhibition was first presented in November 2024 at the premises of The other Arcadia Foundation (16 Fokionos Negri, Athens), marking the 100th anniversary of Franz Kafka’s death. It featured newly commissioned works by 17 Greek artists from the Sotiris Felios Collection, spanning a range of media — including painting, photography, and constructions — and shaped by distinct personal narratives.

Following an initiative by the Embassy of Greece in the Czech Republic, the exhibition travels to Prague, continuing its trajectory in the writer’s birthplace.

Engaging in dialogue with the multifaceted and deeply symbolic work of Franz Kafka, the exhibition proposes a journey through the Kafkaesque universe as seen through contemporary Greek artistic practice. The participating artists explore themes central to Kafka’s world, such as existential anxiety, mortality, the absurd, and the impasses of existence, as well as mechanisms of power, bureaucratic oppression, alienation, and the fluid relationship between the individual and social structures. At the same time, notions of dream, desire, the body, and the post-human are brought to the fore.

As writer Michel Fais notes in his introductory text “An Inevitable Return”, Franz Kafka (1883-1924) attempted to unravel (or, perhaps, to obfuscate) lifelong dualisms, through his books (as well as his surviving journals and correspondence). In other words: A Czech who writes in German, a legal consultant who feels like he’s an author, a Jew who never sets foot in the synagogue, a sworn bachelor who occasionally pretends to be engaged, a respectable urbanite who frequents disreputable dives, an adolescent who grows suddenly old, an introvert who craves crowds, a fantasist whose proclivity for the inconceivable proves, retrospectively, a documented “report” on the forthcoming European gloom.

Two years after its initial presentation in Athens, the exhibition returns to the writer’s birthplace — to the “little mother with claws.” Prague, a city that permeated his writing, disturbed his sleep and health, haunted his walks, kept him almost entirely within its bounds, and received him “swaddled like an infant.”

Participating artists:

Tasos Aridas, Kalliopi Asargiotaki, Marilitsa Vlachaki, Stefanos Daskalakis, Michalis Manoussakis, Theofilos Katsipanos, Emmanouil Bitsakis, Christos Bokoros, Konstantinos Papamichalopoulos, Kostas Papanikolaou, George Rorris, Alekos Levidis, Tassos Mantzavinos, Tassos Missouras, Michel Fais, Dimitris Hantziopoulos, Popi Tsoukatou

The exhibition is accompanied by a publication including forewords by the Ambassador of Greece to Prague, Dinos Constantinou, the Mayor of Prague, Bohuslav Svoboda, the Director of the Museum of the City of Prague, Ivo Macek, the collector Sotiris Felios, on behalf of The other Arcadia Foundation together with a note by writer Michel Fais.

The exhibition is under the auspices of the City of Prague. 

Venue

Clam-Gallas Palace

Husova 20, 110 00 Staré Město, Prague, Czech Republic

Opening Hours

Tuesday– Sunday: 10:00 – 18:00

Monday: κλειστά

www.muzeumprahy.cz

Curator- General Coordination

Dora Vasilakou

Curatorial Advisor

Μichel Fais

Associate Coordinator      

Lucie Kuligova