Prof. Mgr. Michal KOLEČEK, Ph.D. is a professor at the Department of History and Theory of Arts at the Faculty of Art and Design at Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem.
Michal Koleček is the founder and academic supervisor of the two-year follow-up Master’s programme Curatorial Studies and also served as the head of the Department of History and Theory of Arts at the Faculty of Art and Design at Jan Evangelista Purkyně University, where this programme has been successfully offered since 2007. He is also the guarantor and chair of the Doctoral Programme Committee for Visual Communication at the same faculty.
Michal Koleček is a member of the academic and artistic boards at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Ostrava and the Faculty of Education at Jan Evangelista Purkyně University. He is also a member of the Doctoral Programme Committees at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Brno University of Technology and the Faculty of Education at Masaryk University in Brno.
His research focuses on the history and theory of fine art and design, with an emphasis on issues related to contemporary artistic expression; on curatorial studies with a focus on developing methods of contemporary curatorial practice and the socialization of contemporary art.
In his scholarly studies, published both in the Czech Republic and abroad, he primarily engages in theoretical reflection on the latest developments in the Czech and Central European art scenes. He places particular emphasis on art that works with specific social contexts and employs participatory, performative, and cooperative approaches — situating these tendencies within a broader socio-cultural framework.
Among his publications, the following are worth mentioning:
KOLEČEK, M. (ed.): Mo(nu)mentální topografie. Ústí nad Labem: FUD UJEP, 2019, ISBN 978-80-7561-221-2.
KOLEČEK, M. (ed.): In Their Eyes. Ústí nad Labem: FUD UJEP; Rijeka: Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, 2017, ISBN 97880-7561-095-9.
KOLEČEK, M.: Interiéry duše. Plzeň: Západočeská galerie v Plzni, 2017, ISBN 978-80-88027-16-4.
KOLEČEK, M. (ed.): Ze středu ven. Umění regionů 1985−2010. Ústí nad Labem: FUD UJEP, 2014, 376 pp; ISBN 978-80-7414-786-9.
Between 1993 and 2000, Michal Koleček served as the director of the Emil Filla Gallery in Ústí nad Labem; from 1998 to 2000, he was a curator at the Soros Centre for Contemporary Art in Prague, and between 2000 and 2002, at the Václav Špála Gallery in Prague. From 2002 to 2003, he worked as a curator of the Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art at the National Gallery in Prague. In 2003, he curated the Czech-Slovak Pavilion at the 50th Venice Biennale.
Since 2016, he has been the director and chief curator of the House of Arts Ústí nad Labem, and since 2018, he has served as the chief curator of the LUNGOMARE ART project within the RIJEKA 2020 – European Capital of Culture programme (Croatia).
As a guest curator, he has collaborated on exhibition projects with numerous institutions, including:
the National Gallery in Prague, Prague City Gallery, Brno House of Arts, West Bohemian Gallery in Plzeň, Central Bohemian Gallery in Kutná Hora, North Bohemian Gallery of Fine Arts in Litoměřice, DOX Centre for Contemporary Art in Prague, and internationally with institutions such as:
Chelsea Art Museum (New York, USA), Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst (Leipzig, Germany), Kunst im Öffentlichen Raum (Vienna, Austria), Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Rijeka, Croatia), Pori Art Museum (Finland), Kunsthalle Košice (Slovakia), Mücsarnok / Kunsthalle Budapest (Hungary), Galeria Arsenał (Białystok, Poland), TRAFO (Szczecin, Poland), Kunstmuseum Thun (Switzerland), and others.