Milan Dobeš

“Yes, we had a demonstration. Our professors took us with them, and we demonstrated against communism. It wasn’t spontaneous, they were later fired for it. We got a new director, they used to call him ‘the Spanish guy’ because he had fought in Spain. He was a great chap. But he was the first to emigrate later on.”

„The Dissident Biennial. I had no idea what was going on. If I had sent my work there, I could have just let them arrest me on the spot as well. Someone else sent it, and I know who, Meda Mládková from the US, I had known her for fifty years or so. We’d been through a lot, but she was a collector; she knew how to make a good deal and she managed to create a huge, wonderful collection. She sent my stuff there. I think she meant well, but she must have known how the things were here. Suddenly they kicked me out of the Union (of visual artists). I received a phone call from the president of the Union: ‘Milan, did you send your work to the Dissident Biennial?’ I didn’t hear him clearly, so I said: ‘The Biennial of Design? Yes, so what? They put me there.’ ‘Design?! Dissident, you idiot!’ I could hear how shaken he was. I asked: ‘And what does it have to do with you? I’m not in your Union, what’s going on?” And he replied: ‘They brought it up. There’s a police investigation going on.’ Then I received a summons for an interrogation. I wasn’t happy about it. You know, I had only few chances to make architecture. I barely passed the ideology committee. Of course, I had to agree with them on everything and then I did as I wanted… And now, so it seemed, I was at the Biennial. I told them it wasn’t my fault. I sell my work, and it is none of my business if someone buys it and hangs it in their restroom or in some fancy room. I didn’t send it to the exhibition. They must have known that as well, but they said they didn’t. Then one of the policemen showed me some black-and-white photos. ‘Yes, this is my work,’ I said, but I didn’t know who the owner was. ‘Do you have it in colour?’ And that made him angry, so I explained: ‘So that I could tell you who sent it to the Biennial.’”