GET on the ice 🎨 🥅

Hokejisté (Hockey Players), 1981, Teodor Rotrekl

Finding new intersections between arts & culture and sports has always been a strong point of interest.

I was fortunate enough to stumble upon a well curated example of this at the National Gallery Prague. While strolling through Old Town Square, a striking visual with abstract figures and bold block letters and numbers caught my eye - the temporary exhibit titled “Get on the Ice! Ice Hockey and Skating in Art.”

The exhibit featured several unique works utilizing a wide range of media across several years since the popularization of skating in central Europe. The unique curation of the space was the first element that stood out to me. In certain areas, synthetic rubber flooring was used in abstract organic shapes along the gallery walls which mimicked the shape of frozen over ponds. This also referenced the material’s popular use around ice rinks to protect blades, calling out the skate-safe areas. In addition, the majority of the exhibit floor employed jigsaw pieces of white flooring with abstractions of hockey rink lines to guide you though the space. Many temporary gallery walls were also painted as hockey boards and plexiglass to emulate the skating experience further.

From religious depictions of Czech hockey stars to on-ice renditions of Bohemian Rhapsody to an interactive video game piece, this exhibit had it all, see below for some of my personal highlights. I have not spent as much time in gallery spaces as I would have liked recently, and this was a highly enjoyable experience back within the white walls.