Revolver Revue 134/2024/JARO

The cover of this issue features the face of Vladimír Boudník (17 March 1924 - 5 December 1968), one of the most inspiring Czech artists. On the occasion of the centenary of his birth, we have prepared an extensive collection of contributions. Nearly thirty respondents of various professions and generations contributed to the survey - they wrote about their relationship to Boudník's personality and work, as well as about his significance beyond the local context, which unfortunately does not change the fact that he still remains unappreciated in the wider and often professional awareness. One of the few people who have taken a truly fundamental and consistent interest in Boudník's legacy is the gallerist, collector and publisher Jan Placák, with whom we are publishing an interview. In his notes, Viktor Karlík writes about the continuous attention paid to Boudník and then to the circle of his post-war classmates by RR since its samizdat beginnings, about his inspiration in the times of totalitarianism and today, about those thanks to whom Boudník's life has been mapped and his work preserved in the first place, and about the ignorance of the majority of the local "cultural" establishment. The texts are accompanied by reproductions of selected works by Boudník and other sources from the collection of the Ztichlá klika Gallery.

"Early in the morning of May 15, 1944, we arrived in Auschwitz. I didn't know it was Auschwitz. If I were to be cynical, I would say that the transport was my birthday trip and I got Auschwitz as a birthday present. I was fifteen years old that day." Rachel Hanan's autobiographical book, I Overcame Anger and Hatred, is being prepared for a Czech edition, translated by Helena Medkova, and we print excerpts. The poems of Benoît Meunier have been translated by Jaromír Typlt in collaboration with the author. Dagmar Urbánková has written a prose poem, Tugboats Move Paris, from which we publish a part dedicated to the Père-Lachaise cemetery, accompanied by the author's drawings. Marek Vajchr spoke about Martin Heidegger's poems with translator Věra Koubová. This time Malvern is represented in the series From Small Publishers.

"What happens to the human imagination when it suddenly does not control its own creations? How is it that even in our personal fictional world we can't just change whatever we want?" - Jaromír Typlt asks about the drawings by Pavel Salák, another artist who can be classified as art brut. In the Ateliers section, the workplace of Lubomír Přibyl is presented. Richard Drury contributed to the series Seven.

On the next pages we return to an event that we consider crucial: on the national holiday of the Day of the Struggle for Freedom and Democracy, 17 November 2023, the founder and director of the Libri prohibiti library, former dissident, Charter 77 signatory and political prisoner Jiří Gruntorád announced that he was going on hunger strike. An interview with the main actor was conducted for this issue by Adam Drda, who is also the author of the essay summarizing the event. We are also publishing essential documents and a selection of e-mail and SMS messages by which Robert Krumphanzl informed some of his friends and acquaintances about the situation at the hunger strike site in its first hours and days. The author of the illustrations for this volume is Anežka Hájková.

The spring issue concludes with a critical Couleur with essays, reviews and glosses on selected events and topics of current cultural events and operations.

Czech edition