Knížák Milan

Milan Knižák is a Czech artist, musician and performer, member of the international Fluxus movement. He was the rector of the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague and from 1999 to 2011 he was the director of the National Gallery in Prague. For over 20 years, he headed the Studio of Intermedia at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design. He has raised a number of important artists (e.g. Krištof Kintera, Milena Dopitová, Milan Mikuláštík, Jakub Špaňhel and others). He is exceptionally versatile - his activities include events, visual arts, architecture, design, fashion, poetry, photography and music. He first exhibited in 1958 in Mariánské Lázně. In the early 1960s, he began to make his first activities - happenings, such as Ceremony in 1968 and Stone Ceremony in 1971, and continued to create objects. In 1965, Jindřich Chalupecký brought Knížák's activities to the attention of members of the Fluxus movement and mediated contact with its founding member George Maciunas, who appointed Milan Knížák to the position of Director Fluxus East. George Maciunas invited Knížák to the United States. There he realized his Lying Ceremony or The Difficult Ceremony. He returned to Czechoslovakia in 1970. He earned his living doing various jobs, selling his own paintings and restoring puppets. He lectured at the Hochschule für Bildende Kunst in Hamburg and UCLA in Los Angeles. As a professor he has worked at the International Sommerakademie in Salzburg, the Sommeracademie in Berlin, the Summerakademie Gomera in the Canary Islands and the Ecal école cantonale d'art de Lausanne in Switzerland.