DAR (Husák Did Not Smoke Dope)

The Czech music poster, from the 1970's to the present, or, normalization, McDonaldization and attempts at normality. The project explores all that defies fossilised social systems, past and present, and that upsets the establishment.

Following on from the exhibition by Zdenek Primus The Pope Smoked Dope - Rock Music and Alternative Visual Culture in the 1960s (GHMP, Dům U zlatého prstenu, 3.6.-18.9. 2005) an exhibition of Czech music posters from the past forty years has been prepared by Karel Haloun in collaboration with the Moravian Gallery in Brno. The exhibition hopes to arouse the interest of the general public, but primarily those who were "where it was at"- artists, musicians, casual and real collectors, as well as listeners who actively contributed to building this unique collection which will be part of the extensive graphic design collections of the Moravian Gallery in Brno.

The exhibited collection, called The GIFT, covers posters from all possible music genres from concerts, festivals and other music events, to promotional posters for individual bands. On the seemingly restricted background of promotional design in music, the project's ambition is to present more general, broader and revealing evidence of the social climate of that period. As a result, it does not only contain posters which are immediately eye-catching due to their high standard of artistic design. The exhibition tries to cover a broad spectrum of thematic areas such as samizdat posters, concert posters, music-club posters, festival posters, publishers' posters, posters of village dance bands, DIY posters, posters for events of a private, semi-official and purely regional nature, as well as various oddities. It takes an interest in everything that has been eroding the rigidity of past and present social systems and upsets the establishment. Complemented by exhibits from the collection of the Moravian Gallery in Brno the exhibition simultaneously documents evidence of the official promotion of pop stars, jazz, art-rock, symphonic orchestras, folk ensembles, brass bands, variety music shows and takes note of the involvement of show-business stars in today's advertising.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a detailed catalogue prepared by Karel Haloun and Jan Čumlivský, in collaboration with Václav Havlíček, which the author of the project describes thus: "The ambitions of the catalogue go beyond the framework of the usual presentation and cataloguing of the exhibits. It should be something of a game, which would actually not be a bad title for the exhibition as well. In the spirit of the game it is not fair to reveal more at the moment."

Designers shown at the exhibition
Vladimír Ambroz, Bratrstvo, Petr Bosák, Tomáš Brousil,  Pavel Büchler, David Cajthaml, Michal Cihlář, Jan Dungel, Jiří Eliška, Pavel Fuksa, Jakub Hošek, Karel Haloun, Adam Hoffmeister, Václav Houf, Jaroslav Hutka, Tomáš Chorý, Ivo Janík, Robert Jansa, Miroslav Jiránek, Ivana Jurná, Miroslav Kloss, Jef Kratochvil, Petr Krejzek, Klára Kvízová, Jan Kříbek, Luděk Kubík, Zuzana Lednická, Jan Malý, Boris Mysliveček, Aleš Najbrt, Robert V. Novák, Jan Pacák, Zdeněk Paták, Rudo Prekop, Jaroslav Prokop, Zorka Ságlová, Joska Skalník, Michal Škapa, František Štorm, Petr Váša, Dušan Ždímal, Vladimir 518 and others.

More info here.