Where sculpture meets freedom: Australian curator recieves Czech Gratias agit award
At a ceremony in Prague’s Czernin Palace, Australian curator David Handley was among the recipients of the 2025 Gratias Agit award. He was honored by the Czech FM Jan Lipavský for his long-standing efforts to showcase Czech artists at Sculpture by the Sea, a globally recognized outdoor exhibition near Sydney. Handley has long felt a strong connection to Czechia, shaped by his time living in the country during the 1990s.
Nine individuals and one organization were honored this week with the Gratias Agit award, which the Czech Foreign Ministry gives annually to those who promote Czechia abroad. This year David Handley, founder and artistic director of Sculpture by the Sea, a major cultural event in Australia that has consistently showcased Czech sculptors, received the award from the Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský.
“Sculpture by the Sea is a large, free-to-the-public sculpture exhibition on the coast of Australia,” Handley explains. “There’s a beautiful clifftop walk from the famous Bondi Beach that goes for two kilometres, and right on the edge of the continent we can install large sculptures by artists from around the world. It runs for 18 days each year in our spring, and 450,000 people come. It’s a celebration of Sydney, of life, of art.”
The connection to Czechia goes far beyond a few invited artists. In 2019, the exhibition hosted a special showcase of Czech and Slovak sculptors to mark the 30th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, supported by the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “It was a wonderful celebration of 12 artists from the Czech Republic and Slovakia in Australia,” says Handley. “As I like to say, an exhibition in the lucky country with artists from the Czech Republic.”
Asked what makes Czech artists stand out among the more than 50 nationalities that have participated over the years, Handley reflects: “There’s not what I would say a Czech or Slovak aesthetic in the same way as there is a Japanese aesthetic, but there is, for want of a better word, a bohemian aesthetic. There’s something that’s grungy, something that’s a bit edgy, something that’s quite cool, maybe sometimes a bit irreverent.”
The ties also extend into the Australian countryside. With the help of the Czech Consulate General in Sydney, Handley has launched a new initiative—the Snowy Valleys Sculpture Trail, a permanent installation of 64 sculptures across 150 kilometres, three of which are by Czech artists: Vojtěch Míča, Milan Kuzica, and Václav Fiala. “All of those artists have been to Australia either for the Snowy Valleys or for Sculpture by the Sea,” says Handley. “They’re kind of friends or good friends.”
Receiving the Gratias Agit award in Prague brought back vivid memories for Handley, who first came to Czechia in 1993. “I turned up here as one of the typical Western bums, and I had a lot of fun,” he recalls. “Beer was 20 crowns. I got standing room tickets at the opera for 20 crowns. By the time I left, I had friends who were working in Václav Havel’s office.”
But the artistic seed was planted during a seemingly casual trip to a castle. “My Czech girlfriend at the time took me to a sculpture exhibition at Klenová Castle, just out of Klatovy. It was an exhibition of artists who were persona non grata during the communist years. Seeing these sculptures contrasted with the ruins of the castle, I realised that sculpture was the art form for the freedom of the public event, cultural event that I’d always thought I might create.”
More than 30 years later, Handley returned to Czechia not just as a friend, but as an award recipient. “This is like an exclamation mark,” he said. “We like to think of our organisation as carrying the torch of 1968.”
