Exhibition|Gallery
Salm Palace: Asian Art Across Space and Time
The NGP’s Asian Art Collection presents, in a new permanent exhibition at the Salm Palace, a selection of 520 works of art from Asia and the Islamic world, created over a span of 5,000 years and, among other things, situated within the context of cultural relations with Central Europe.
Organized into two main sections, the exhibition focuses on themes related to the cultural history of the Czech lands and highlights the qualities and significance of works from Asian and Islamic visual cultures within their original contexts. It also reveals the provenance of the works, including how they were acquired for the NGP collections.
The introductory section recalls the historical framework of European Orientalism and colonial policy, which contributed to the spread of awareness of Asian and Islamic artistic traditions as well as to collecting in the Czech lands from the 16th to the 20th century. In addition to historical presentations of Asian and Middle Eastern countries within the context of world exhibitions, shop windows displaying goods from the “Orient,” or private interiors with “Oriental” décor, the exhibition features prominent Czech scholars, collectors, and artists from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries who reflected on Asian and Islamic art through scholarly or creative means.
The second, more extensive section of the exhibition presents Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan, Indian, and Islamic cultural spheres from the 3rd millennium BCE to the present day, viewed through the lens of a contemporary interdisciplinary approach combining art history, Asian and Islamic studies, and museology. Within thematic contexts, the exhibition explores spiritual traditions, writing and calligraphy, decoration and ornamentation, and the natural and human worlds in individual visual cultures. The representation of cultural regions and historical periods is uneven, reflecting the nature of collecting in the Czech lands.
The exhibition opens up space for exploring intercultural connections and critically revising historical approaches as one of the goals of decolonization in museum practice. It seeks to bridge stereotypical Eurocentric perspectives and incorporate the approaches of Asian experts in the interpretation and presentation of works to foster a more comprehensive understanding. The exhibition features audiovisual and interactive elements, an audio guide, spaces for rest and meditation, and an educational workshop.
Curatorial team: Markéta Hánová, Lenka Gyaltso, Kristýna Rendlová, Jana Ryndová (NGP) in collaboration with Zdenka Klimtová, Eva Lukášová, and Michaela Pejčochová
Education team: Anna Chmelová, Jana Klímová
