Exhibitions and events

In 2019, the National Museum commemorated two significant anniversaries, namely 100 years of Czech Egyptology and 30 years since the Velvet Revolution.  These anniversaries became the leitmotif of the year. Two exhibitions were dedicated to Egypt in 2019 - the exhibition On the Banks of the Nile, prepared in the Náprstek Museum, and the virtual exhibition Tutankhamun RealExperiece prepared in collaboration with Italian colleagues. In the autumn of 2019, the museum commemorated the jubilee year with a special exhibition project Velvet Revolution. At the same time, on the occasion of the anniversary, it ceremoniously opened the Museum Complex as a whole and thus connected the Historical and New Building of the National Museum with a unique underground corridor with a multimedia exhibition.

Velvet Revolution

The exhibition prepared by the National Museum in the Historical Building for the 30th anniversary commemorated the “Velvet Revolution” in two contexts. On the one hand, it described the events of the second half of the 1980s, which foreshadowed the crisis in society and politics, and at the same time showed how an authoritatively controlled communist state was unable to solve basic problems related to ecology, cultural and spiritual life. Original objects, photographs, posters and documents from the collections of the National Museum, but also from other institutions (Libri Prohibiti Library, Chamber of Deputies, Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes (ÚSTR)), tell the story of official politics, dissent, parallel culture and the environmental movement, culminating in events after November 17, 1989. In its final part, the exhibition shows the dynamic development of society and its transformation in the first half of the year until the elections in June 1990. It includes rich documentary audio-visual material, as well as memories of participants and witnesses.

Tutankhamun RealExperience

The exhibition Tutankhamun RealExperience, presented to the public one of the most famous Egyptian pharaohs, in 3 or 4 halls of the Historical Building of the NM. The exhibition was prepared by the National Museum in cooperation with the Civita Mostre e Musei and Laboratoriorosso company. Several important Czech and European Egyptologists also took part in the project. The exhibition was based mainly on multimedia technologies, however, it also included an archaeological section full of real artefacts from the depositories of the Náprstek Museum. There was also a statue of a young pharaoh borrowed from the August Kestner Museum in Hanover by the Fritz Behrens Foundation. In the Historical Building, visitors thus had the opportunity to get to know the pharaoh and the discovery of his tomb through modern technology and experience the discovery itself and knowledge of the afterlife of the pharaoh almost first-hand.

On the Banks of the Nile

The exhibition of the Náprstek Museum - “On the Banks of the Nile” through more than 500 collection items from Czech and foreign collections presented the inhabitants of the ancient Nile valley and the environment that surrounded them and which gave rise to one of the oldest civilizations.

Import / Export / Rock´n´roll

In the early 1960s, even the Iron Curtain could not prevent the influence of Western popular music. Rock'n'roll and beat were everywhere, influencing young listeners and musicians alike, and the relaxed social climate swung through the socialist regime. The ruling regime in Czechoslovakia labelled Western culture with various attributes - “defective” or even “ideologically diverse”. But the listeners knew better and the fashionable rock wave could not be stopped. The ruling circles were thus forced to acknowledge its existence and begin to reckon with it in their cultural policy.