Opening of the Red Church will kick off the national opening of the Festival of Museum Nights in Olomouc

From 19 May to 16 June, museums, galleries and cultural spaces across the country will open in the evening. This year, Museum Night will take place in 622 institutions in 187 cities. The national opening will take place in Olomouc at the opening of a new cultural stand – the Red Church.

The Festival of Museum Nights follows the International Museum Day, which falls on 18 May. “The festival covers the activities of museums and galleries, which offer their visitors a number of accompanying programmes in addition to tours of permanent exhibitions and current exhibitions,” said Viktor Tichák, Olomouc’s deputy mayor for culture.

Voluntary date and admission

Although the date of the festival is precisely set, some museums and galleries will join the festival even after its official date. “Although each organisation has the choice of whether and how much it will collect in symbolic admission fees, with a few exceptions they choose the traditional free admission or voluntary admission,” said Anna Komárková, director of the Association of Museums and Galleries of the Czech Republic, speaking for the main organisers.

The Red Church, which has undergone a major revitalisation since 2020, is part of the Olomouc Scientific Library. Immediately after the renovations are completed, the church will become the venue for the National Opening of the Festival of Museum Nights. “We have thus acquired a representative space for cultural and educational activities, even with a national overlap. The National Opening of the Festival of Museum Nights is an honour for us,” said Iveta Ťulpíková, the director of the library. The ribbon-cutting ceremony is scheduled for Friday 19 May at 2 pm. Visitors will be able to enjoy guided tours of the newly opened church building from 8 pm to 10 pm during the Museum Night.

Olomouc Museum Night

The main actors of Olomouc Museum Night include the Museum of Art and the Museum of National History. In addition, the Museum of Art is made up of two buildings, the Museum of Modern Art and the Archdiocesan Museum, which opened in April after a two-year renovation. “Visitors will have access to the Century of Relativity exhibition, an exhibition mapping an architectural unique – the power plant and villa in Háj u Mohelnice, and the Flashback: Hermit 1992-1999 exhibition. In the Archdiocesan Museum, people can see for the first time the previously closed parts of the medieval Zdík’s Palace, they can also see art treasures in the permanent exhibition To Glory and Praise and the new permanent exhibition offers the history of seven millennia of the settlement of Olomouc’s Svatováclavské vrchší,” said Ondřej Zatloukal, director of the Museum of Art.

Jakub Ráliš, director of the neighbouring Museum of Homeland History, emphasised that curators will be available to visitors throughout the museum night in the exhibitions and displays. “In the Museum of Patrimony, people can look forward to the exhibitions Children’s World, Shells of the Mediterranean or the National Photography Competition, and the permanent exhibitions will also be open,” said Director Ráliš.

Also important is the talk, which starts at 6 pm on Friday 19 May, entitled “ReVision Olomouc 12: Museum Quarter – What does the ring of cultural institutions around the Square of the Republic offer?” It will deal with the potential of Olomouc’s museum district.

Concerts and video mapping

Fifty institutions in Olomouc will participate in the Museum Nights Festival this year. The main part of the programme will take place on the Republic Square, where video mapping of the building of the Museum of Homeland History and concerts will be prepared.

The phenomenon of Museum Nights has been one of the permanent presentations of cultural heritage in major European cities in a particularly attractive way for many years. Overnight, museums become places of extraordinary and unexpected experiences and encounters. In the Czech Republic, the Ministry of Culture also participates in the festival.

In Olomouc, galleries, museums and other cultural institutions will open to the public in the evening for the tenth time this year. Museum Night starts at 6 pm and ends at midnight. An overview of individual Museum Nights across the country is on the muzejninoc.cz website, and the involvement of Olomouc cultural institutions is on the olomouckamuzejninoc.cz website.

Appendix

• Map and list of participating institutions