The PLATO gallery’s recent Mies van der Rohe Award nomination is attracting new visitors, and a current exhibition has been extended
Ostrava’s PLATO contemporary art gallery is extending the duration of the exhibition Escaped, Found a Hideout, Still on the Run (Animal News) by an additional week, until 17 March. The extension comes in response to an upsurge of public interest as well as a planned visit by the jury of the EU’s Mies van der Rohe Award; the gallery – converted from a historic former slaughterhouse – has reached the finals of this prestigious international competition.
The PLATO contemporary art gallery. Photograph above: Lukáš Kaboň. Photograph below: Martin Polák
The exhibition is being held in the gallery’s largest indoor space, which used to be a slaughterhouse for pigs. The purpose of the exhibition is to encourage visitors (who can also bring their dogs or cats on a leash) to suspend their human ways of looking at the world and instead to see things through the eyes of animals. There is a “newsroom” in which visitors can make an active contribution to the exhibition – for example by creating a report about urban animals, which will then be displayed on a huge panel. Or you can borrow an animal costume made by one of the participating artists, available from age 2 up to adult sizes, and walk around the exhibition space wearing it. The exhibition has now been extended until 17 March, after which the gallery will be closed for a short while to install two new exhibitions – the first of which will have its opening on 24 April.
The gallery decided to extend the exhibition partly due to an upsurge in public interest, but also to accommodate the planned visit by the jury of the Mies van der Rohe Award; the converted former slaughterhouse has progressed to the final round of this prestigious European contemporary architecture competition. The jury would like to see how the building functions during its normal operations. The nomination for the finals is a huge success for the conversion project; it is the first-ever Czech building to reach this stage of the competition.
Over eight thousand visitors have attended the exhibition so far. Three categories of tickets are available: “Fan” (1 CZK), “Supporter” (30 CZK), and “Enthusiast” (100 CZK).