Curator and art history professor Helena Capkova will talk about a rich and diverse design work of architect, stage designer and painter Bedrich Feuerstein, with a focus on his American research trip and its outcomes.
Bedrich Feuerstein (1892-1936) was an influential member of the Czechoslovak and European avant-garde of the interwar period. He was a cosmopolitan figure, always on the move seeking inspiration and inspiring the rich network of his collaborators. He spent two years at the Perrets' atelier in Paris and four years working with Antonin Raymond in Japan. The key project of his career developed for Raymond was the St. Luke's Hospital in Tokyo. As part of the design process, Feuerstein visited the US and studied the most progressive hospitals, such as the Presbyterian and Mt. Sinai in New York City.
Free and open to the public. Suggested donation $5. Space is limited, on first-come first-served basis. RVSP through Eventbrite.
About
Helena Capkova, PhD, is a Czech Tokyo/Kyoto-based curator, researcher, and art history professor at Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto. She studied transnational visual culture and Japanese studies in Prague and London. As a PhD candidate, she collaborated on international and interdisciplinary research projects such as Forgotten Japonisme (2007-2010) and later Enchanted Modernities: Theosophy, Modernism, and the Arts, c.1875-1960 (2013-2015). Since 2010, she has published and lectured extensively about the specific nature of Japanese modernism and avant-garde which she considers as an inherent part of art history, traditionally perceived as Western. Her publications on this topic include Believe in socialism … : Architect Bedřich Feuerstein and His Perspective on Modern Japan and Architecture”(2016) and Careless Shell – Transnational exploration of Czechoslovak and Japanese Surrealisme (2015). In 2017, she designed a successful series about architect Antonin Raymond at the Tokyo Czech Center which led to the book Antonín Raymond in Japan (1948–1976), which she edited with architect K. Kitazawa.
In 2022, Capkova curated an extensive exhibition, Bedrich Feuerstein, Architect: Prague-Paris-Tokyo and New York, at the National Technical Museum in Prague. A few copies of the catalog will be available for sale at the event.
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).