The rector of the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, Maria Topolčanská, resigned this Wednesday. She did so at an extraordinary session of the academic senate, which dealt with the proposal for her dismissal.
According to the proposal, which was signed by 17 people from the school, the rector repeatedly tried to bypass the senate, trivialized the problems and cooperation with her was unsustainable. This follows from the minutes of the senate meeting and the appeal motion. The school published the documents on the website.
All four vice-rectors of the Academy of Fine Arts resigned already on Monday. They stated that their ideas about management and communication were too different from Topolčanská’s approach. The fifty-one-year-old Czech architect of Slovak origin has led the school since 2022, when she replaced Tomáš Vaňek in the position. It was supposed to end in 2026.
However, according to the minutes, the senate already started dealing with the proposal for her recall this Wednesday. Topolčanská informed the senate that three vice-rectors and one vice-rector resigned on Monday. Subsequently, according to the minutes, she stated that she was resigning as of today. The Senate then resolved to end the process of recalling the rector.
According to the Higher Education Act, the rector is dismissed by the president on the proposal of the academic senate. The senate received the proposal for the rector’s dismissal on Tuesday. It was signed by 17 people, including students and teachers. They justified this by the breach of trust and the impossibility to cooperate in the management of the school. According to them, the management of the institution repeatedly tried to bypass the senate and made decisions contrary to election promises. They mention, for example, the cancellation of the preparatory study studio without approval by the senate, the personnel and operational crisis in the study department, or the change of enrollments in studios without discussion with students and teachers.
“We believe that the rector systematically refuses to openly and honestly name the obviously existing problems, trivializing them and concealing the real state of affairs. This approach creates an atmosphere of distrust in management processes,” wrote the petitioners. According to them, further cooperation with the rector is unsustainable.
Vice-rectors Jana Bernartová, Vít Havránek, Anetta Mona Chișa and Šárka Krtková also resigned due to a different approach to communication and management. They deny that their departure was related to a recent petition that also criticized Topolčanská and demanded its end. “We clearly declare that our decision has not the slightest connection with the petition. We are proud of the quality and results of our school,” said the outgoing vice-chancellors.
Topolčanská’s petition criticized the inability to perform the function and the lack of erudition and experience in the field. At the same time, the signatories requested the restructuring of the school and also changes in the National Gallery or the Jindřich Chalupecký Prize. The document was signed by, for example, the former rector of the academy Milan Knížák, the sculptors Jaroslav Róna and David Černý, the director Jan Svěrák, the architect Josef Pleskot, the artist Michal Rittstein and the writer Jáchym Topol.
The text was published by Barbora Šlapetová, the wife of former academy teacher Lukáš Rittstein. Topolčanská dismissed him last year for attempted fraud and unethical behavior, as she said on Czech TV. More than 2,300 other people have signed the petition on the website.
The vice chancellors of the school responded in June, saying that the petition mixes factual points with personal attacks and misinformation. According to them, the view of the school’s current students on the world is significantly different from today’s generation of people in their fifties and sixties who signed the appeal. “The collision of the old with the new is a natural, periodically recurring phenomenon in the art world. The only thing that is specific about the current situation is the fact that here the earlier-born rebel against the young, usually it is the other way around,” said the four vice-rectors. She just resigned now.
According to the rector’s office, all normal activities of the academy remain fully functional and continue without interruption. “Students and employees will continue to receive the full support needed to effectively carry out their work and studies. All members of management, including those who have submitted their resignations, will continue to fulfill their duties until the end of the notice period on December 31, 2024, in longer if necessary,” said Markéta Strnadová, head of the rector’s office.
Evžen Mrázek remains in the function of the academy’s bursar. The Academic Senate is preparing further steps, which are foreseen for such situations by the Higher Education Act and the school’s internal regulations.
The outgoing rector of the school, Maria Topolčanská, previously worked in academic research or on educational and exhibition projects. She researched the “political dimension of architectural practice” or the theory of living in contemporary cities. In 2017, she started teaching at the Department of Art Theory and History of the Academy of Fine Arts, and since 2020 she has been a member of the academic senate. In her role, she wanted to “improve the comfort of the school’s organization, introduce European standards for supporting the balance of life and work, and at the same time increase the influence of teachers and students on administrative management”.
The Academy of Fine Arts is the oldest art school in the Czech Republic, founded in 1799. It offers bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral study programs in the field of fine arts. Students can choose, for example, from the fields of painting, sculpture or drawing and graphics.
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