Dutch artist Kinke Kooi is having her first solo show in Czechia, as an international guest for the Jindřich Chalupecký Award 2025 exhibition.
Kinke Kooi: Listening Body
26 September 2025 - 11 January, 2026
Trade Fair Palace of the National Gallery, Prague
Artistic career of the 64-year-old Dutch painter Kinke Kooi has spanned decades, but she has only recently gained significant international recognition. The works in Listening Body are exhibited in Czechia for the very first time, representing a selection from a body of work spanning four decades. By choosing Kooi as the foreign guest of 36th Jindrich Chalupecký Award, the curatorial team of the JChS is responding, among other things, to the abolition of the age limit within the Award. “Kinke Kooi’s drawings are visually opulent – it is both easy and beautiful to lose oneself in them. We hope visitors to our exhibition will be able to do just that, using the corners of the exhibition architecture and the artworks themselves to immerse themselves in contemplation of the complex web of human relationships and the importance of caring for one another,” says curator Veronika Čechová, who is curating the exhibition with Barbora Ciprová.
Kinke Kooi (*1961) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Arnhem, where she still lives and works. In her drawings, she brings small details closer so that their visuality becomes a haptic experience. Her work explores themes of consideration, mutual respect, hospitality, and the support of closeness and connection. Her work is represented in museum collections in America and the Netherlands (including the Tang Teaching Museum in New York, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, the Museum Arnhem, and the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam), as well as in a number of private collections in Europe and America, where she has exhibited regularly since 1995. Entrance to the exhibition is free of charge. ABOUT THE JINDŘICH CHALUPECKÝ AWARD The Jindřich Chalupecký Award, named after prominent theorist and critic of fine art and literature, essayist, and philosopher, was established in 1990 following an initiative by Václav Havel, Jiří Kolář, and Theodor Pištěk. It is intended for emerging artists living or working in Czechia. The award also serves to recognise the significance of Jindřich Chalupecký’s (1910–1990) life’s work, particularly his efforts from 1969 onward, when he supported unofficial, avant-garde art and sought to help Czech non-conformist art maintain its distinctiveness, originality, and unbroken continuity with the modernist tradition and European fine art culture.
