Teige and the Harlequin

A gathering with writer and radio creator Jiří Kamen and other informed guests around his new book, in which he revives the Czech interwar avant-garde and humanizes the names we know from school readers. At its centre stands Karel Teige, a charismatic, unifying, and inspiring figure, an important critic and theorist of art, visual artist, and translator, whose life path crossed with artists such as Biebl, Halas, Nezval, Seifert, Voskovec, Werich, Funke, Breton, Krejcar, Mayakovsky, Kokoschka, Štyrský, Toyen, Jakobson, Vančura, and many, many others. And also the women who loved, supported, and inspired him. Teige identified with communist ideology for most of his life, yet he never became a member of the Communist Party — he had his own ideas, opinions, and doubts. Had he not died prematurely, he would most likely have shared the fate of his friend Záviš Kalandra and ended up on the gallows.

Jiří Kamen has maintained a lifelong interest in Karel Teige, as evidenced, among other things, by the Czech Radio Vltava series The Year of Modern Art, in which, as dramaturge, he used Teige’s idea: “Culture is not inherited; culture is won.”

Jiří Kamen (*1951, Kolín) is a writer, journalist, and radio author. He studied art history at the Faculty of Arts of Palacký University in Olomouc. Since 1975 he has worked in Czech Radio in various positions; from 1990 to 1992 he was editor-in-chief of the Vltava station. He is the author of literary programmes, radio plays, and documentaries. For editing the weekend supplement of the Vltava station, he received the Novinářská křepelka award. Together with Pavla Horáková, he wrote the extensive book of correspondence and diaries from the First World War Přišel befel od císaře pána and Zum Befehl, pane lajtnant…, following the radio series Field Post. For his short story collection Elvis from Záluží (2018), he was nominated for the Magnesia Litera award.

· PARTNERS ·
The event is organized in cooperation with Argo Publishing House, with financial support from the City of Prague, the Prague 2 municipal district, and the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic as part of the Laichter House literary club.