Rene G. Vasicek, Daniela Vancurova, Pavel Kraus
An online mini-series presenting three-minute videos of Czech and Slovak artists and professionals in New York and their reflections on how the Covid reality affected their work and projects. This second edition will feature three accomplished creative New Yorkers, each in a different field: Daniela Vancurova (pre-school teacher and consultant), Rene G. Vasicek (writer and educator), and Pavel Kraus (visual artist).
Moderated by Christopher Harwood, Q&A will follow the presentations.
Daniela Vancurova born in Prague, received her MA from Teachers College at Charles’ University in Prague in 1987 and additional BA credits from Manhattan Community College.Since 1988 she worked at Brooklyn Free Space cooperative preschool that follows learning-through-play philosophy. It recognizes each child’s individuality and his learning style and interest. She has been pursuing her interest in Japanese cuisine, creating finger puppets for her school, and taking walks.
Rene Georg Vasicek was born in Austria in 1969 to Czech parents defecting from Czechoslovakia. He grew up in the pine barrens of eastern Long Island and has lived in New York City since the Nineties. His writing has appeared in Wigleaf, Hinterland, Bellevue Literary Review, Western Humanities Review, Gargoyle, Mid-American Review, Barrelhouse, Post Road, and elsewhere. René earned an MFA at Sarah Lawrence College, and was awarded an NEA fellowship. He is an adjunct lecturer at Lehman College in the Bronx and BMCC in Manhattan. He lives in Astoria, Queens with his wife and two sons. His debut novel The Defectors is loosely based on the experiences of Czechs and Slovaks in a totalitarian regime.
Pavel Kraus, born in Pilsen, emigrated after the Soviet invasion in 1968 and eventually arrived in the USA. He received his MFA from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago in 1974. Since 1984, he has been residing and working in New York City and since 2000, at his studio in DUMBO Brooklyn. Over the past 40 years, he has been focusing on an extensive body of work entitled Sex, Death, Offerings. These works incorporated variations of media/techniques including the ancient pietre dure technique and the marriage of organic/inorganic elements. Pavel’s works can be found in private collections and have been exhibited extensively nationally and in Europe and reviewed/published in various publications, including Art in America. In 2014, Pavel had a solo exhibition Engima in the Stephen Romano Gallery in DUMBO, Brooklyn, curated by David Ebony. His 40-Year-Retrospective was reviewed in David Ebony’s Top Ten New York Gallery Shows of 2016. Between the years 2016 to 2018, Kraus has completed five solo shows, culminating in Roma in January 2018 at the Long Island University, Brooklyn campus.
The event will be presented live online on ZOOM. RSVP through Eventbrite to receive a Zoom link.
Free and open to the public.
This event is organized by the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU), New York Chapter, with the support of the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association (BBLA).