Prague exhibition puts Czechoslovakia’s forgotten lamp designers in the spotlight
A new exhibition at Prague’s Museum of Decorative Arts, part of this year’s Designblok, shines a light on mass-produced lamps made in Czechoslovakia from the 1950s to the 1980s. I went to have a look and spoke to the exhibition’s curator Eva Slunečková.
What was the initial idea for this exhibition? Who came up with the idea in the first place?
"The story began about two years ago, when a gallery from Paris, Initio Arts and Design, approached me to be part of a publication about Czechoslovak and Hungarian lamps. When I was researching the material, I found out that in Czechia and Slovakia, there hadn't been an exhibition or publication on the subject yet, and I felt really sorry about that.
"So I saw some potential. And because I am part of the programme board of Designblok, I was telling my colleagues about what was happening, and they really supported the idea of creating an exhibition in this form. And the topic of light was ideal for that.
The exhibition focuses on lamps produced in Czechoslovakia between the 1950s and 1980s. Why is it a story worth telling?
"Because no one was interested in these guys, so I wanted to really highlight the Czechoslovak authors and designers as creators, because no one really perceived them as designers before. They were just people working for these big companies.
"They were companies that were owned by the state, and no one really was interested in them. So I wanted to give them the recognition that these people usually had a really artistic background, and they just didn't have any other chance to be creative. This was their only chance.
These designers were limited both in terms of materials and technology. How did these limitations actually shape their work?
"That's very true, because this is a big part of the design history of these lamps. They were really limited in terms of production, because they could only use the technologies and materials that were actually produced in Czechoslovakia.
"They needed to be really creative and focus on what was produced in-house. So there was a motivation for them to be much more creative than when they were working in Czechoslovakia, where you have a lot of solutions or technologies available.
Is there something that connects these designs?
"I think it's the quality of the materials used and the practicality. For example, my story is that I had one of the lamps at home, but I didn't know anything about it. And then, after I was approached to be part of the publication, I started to look differently at the object.
"Before, I saw it as just a practical solution. It's easily transportable, it's firm, it's working well. But now I see the elegance of the solution, of the form and the material, and that it's really timeless design.
"Some of them are, like, 70 years old, and they're so beautiful. Even now, every contemporary designer has to be jealous of these guys because they've done really great work.
How many lamps have you actually collected for this exhibition, and how difficult was the process?
"We are exhibiting 115 lamps from 15 authors. And the base was created by the gallery Initio Arts and Design. That was the first initiator of the project.
"And then I approached different collectors, even really small ones, like normal people who have them at home. I have a few pieces here because during the project I became a collector too.
"So it was really difficult because we had, like, 25 collectors, I think, which is quite a big production already.
And finally, what does this exhibition say about Czechoslovak communist-era design, and how do these lamps compare to what was produced at the time in the West?
"You can see some similarities, of course, because at the time, copying wasn't really a negative thing, because they saw it as an inspiration. They wanted to be ambitious.
"They saw the technology in some magazine, or sometimes they were allowed to travel. So they were trying to integrate it into their work.
"So it's a really interesting part of design history in general, and how they were basically creative by themselves as well. So this is a really important part of design history that is missing, and we are trying to fill this hole up."
