First tanks, then oxyacetylene torches used against sculptures. Testimony to the normalization of art
Download image
Milan Weber was born into the family of Jan Weber, a clerk, on 21 January 1943 in Ostrava. He lived through the end of the war in his mother’s birthplace, Mnichovice in Central Bohemia, where his parents took their son in fear of the bombing of Ostrava. He regularly went to Mnichovice for summer holidays. He graduated from grammar school and studied at the metallurgical faculty of the Mining University. In the mid-1960s he founded a film club in the Ostrava House of Culture and became interested in fine arts. In 1968 he was active in the Club of Committed Non-Partisans and at the beginning of the so-called normalisation he refused to answer questions during political checks at work. In the 1970s and 1980s he organised exhibitions in Ostrava of artists discriminated against by the regime. In 1993 he founded the later respected and sought-after Sokolská 26 Gallery. He became a member of the Czech Social Democratic Party and was active in municipal politics. At the time of recording, in 2023, Milan Weber lived in Ostrava.
