the robert guttmann gallery is closed for reconstruction starting october 1 2024

Robert Guttmann Gallery

ODED EZER: THE SAMSA ENIGMA STARTS ON 4 JUNE, 2024

On June 4 this year – which marks the centenary of the death of famed Prague writer Franz Kafka – the Robert Guttmann Gallery of the Jewish Museum in Prague will be launching an exhibition by the leading Israeli typographer and artist Oded Ezer. The installation, presented as mocumentary fiction, expands on the fantasy surrounding the protagonist of one of Kafka's most renowned stories. Gregor Samsa is portrayed as a forgotten literary prodigy whose writings have mysteriously vanished. Unlike Kafka, Samsa was not fortunate enough to have his manuscripts preserved, but Ezer takes his narrative even a step further by pointing out that the titles on the covers of twenty-four empty books are actually excerpts from the opening paragraph of The Metamorphosis, hinting at the possibility that Kafka himself might have appropriated Samsa's work...

More about an exhibition at our press release

Named after the well-known Prague naive painter Robert Guttmann (1880-1942), the gallery was opened in 2001

The venue covers an area of 80 square metres and meets all the requirements of a modern gallery. The use of high-quality adjustable window shades and a double-door entrance makes it possible to fully control the temperature and humidity of the room, thus creating ideal conditions for the display of even the most sensitive of materials (parchments, old printed books, historic textiles). The use of quality low-energy lighting and the possibility of regulating the intensity and angle of light make it possible to display historic materials that are extremely sensitive to light.

The gallery presents temporary exhibitions of items from the museum's collections and displays that focus on Jewish life, the persecution of Bohemian and Moravian Jews during the Second World War, Jewish monuments in the Czech Republic, and the Jewish presence in contemporary visual art.

Visitor information

• Free ticket (only for the gallery)
• Disabled access: yes (access from the JMP administrative building)

Where to find us

entry U Staré školy 3, 110 00 Praha 1

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