First Circulating Library of Lonesome Books, dedicated to Jaroslav Hašek
Open air bookcase at Školska 28
On the yard connecting the building of the gallery and the backtrack of the Municipal Library in Školska 28 is since August 21st established The First Circulating Library of Lonesome Books, tributed to Jaroslav Hašek. One dont need ID card, photography or deposit to borrow one of the books from the bookshelf. You are invited take the book, bring the book back, or hold it, or bring the books you dont need at home. Just leave them for the next potential reader. You can of course bring your own printed matter if you are looking for people to read them.
the bulletin board next the bookshelf serves as message board for another members of the community connected with the first Real Public Library in Prague.
The institution of Library is since long time related with issues of sanctuary and power. People are using books to read,write, publish, collect, conserve, ward, lose, toss and time to time even destroy and burn. Books are related to the realm of imagination, narration and travel in time. Even if today the old books are loosing their monetary value, in each of them is imprinted some personal story and message. The Open Air Library in Školska is in certain sense as well the group portrait of the community living in the house and visiting the place. Books are exposed to our care and careless, influenced by the weather and formed by process of decay.
The intervention for the community project at the Communication space Školska 28 was designed by Palestinian conceptual artist Emil Zuaiter (born in Jerusalem 1959, living in Lisbon.
Temporary library is tributed to writer Jaroslav Hašek, who was born in 1883 in the house at no. 16, just few blocks from here. Some years ago the original house was demolished and a plush hotel erected instead.
Emil Zuaiter is planning to found other temporary open air libraries in Prague, dedicated to interesting personalities who lived in the neighborhood (Ladislav Klíma, Karel Ladislav Kukla, Božena Němcová, Michail Bakunin, František Křižík, Popelka Biliánová, Ivan Diviš, et al.)
More information: skolska28@skolska28.cz
http://www.skolska28.cz
August 2th 2009, Praha
Jaroslav Hašek (April 30, 1883-January 3, 1923) was a Czech humorist and satirist best known for his world-famous novel The Good Soldier Švejk, an unfinished collection of farcical incidents about a soldier in World War I, which has been translated into sixty languages. He also wrote some 1,500 short stories. He was a journalist, bohemian, and practical joker. His short life had many odd parallels with another Prague contemporary, the Jewish writer Franz Kafka (1883-1924). He founded with his friends an imaginary Party of Moderate Progress Within the Bounds Of the Law.
