MIKE COWLEY welcomes half a century of remarkable work, that begins before the Greens and invites a connection to — and not a division from — nature

WHEN is a museum not a museum? This is the question that the Czech National Museum poses in its new exhibition, Collections & Politics, exploring the themes and narratives that underpinned the presentation of the past under socialism.
After November 1989, those museums dedicated to the working-class movement and its leaders were closed, while the surviving institutions were overhauled and reconfigured in light of the seismic political, economic, and cultural shift to neoliberalism.
As a consequence, much was lost — destroyed, despised, or sold off to collectors — and what was left of the socialist past was shuttered away in basements and storage units, out of sight, and only brought to mind through “ironic” expositions that thoroughly de-contextualised and frequently mocked the artefacts.

JOHN CALLOW tells of the rise, fall and rise again of a young martyr to the early French republic, Joseph Bara, whose short life was elevated by Robespierre and, later, others for its emotional and ideological appeal

As the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia rebuilds support through anti-cuts campaigns, the government seeks to silence it before October’s parliamentary elections through liberal totalitarianism, reports JOHN CALLOW

