Hunt Kastner: One of Prague’s best private galleries founded by two foreigners

A Canadian came to the Czech Republic to teach English and ended up co-founding a contemporary art gallery. This is briefly the main line of the life story of Camille Hunt. In 2005, together with American Kacha Kastner, she decided to set up a new gallery in Prague, which they named Hunt Kastner.

“We thought we would be a good fit, bringing different skills but having the same aim and approach,” explained Camille. They said that their main incentive was a lack of quality commercial galleries which would be helping to develop artists’ careers at home or internationally. Nowadays, they feel better about the Czech private arts sphere as a number of similar galleries have been established.

Hunt Kastner cooperates with several young artists and tries to support them. There are no specific criteria according to which Camille and Kacha choose the artists, except both of the gallery owners must feel strongly about the work to be displayed at their venue. As of now, they collaborate with 15 Czech art personalities, such as Eva Koťátková, Dominik Lang, and Jiří Skála.

Camille and Kacha’s gallery has already gained a great deal of success. The gallery owners themselves participated in several prestigious arts festivals,including Liste-Art Fair Basel and ART-O-RAMA in Marseille. “Participation in international art fairs is very important to the gallery and our artists, as the contemporary art market here in the Czech Republic is quite small,” Hunt said. “Such events allow us to meet and reach the wider contemporary art world.”

Camille Hunt and Kacha Kastner consider advancing careers of several of their artists to be their most satisfying achievement. In the future, their ambition is to focus on the “more mature” generation of Czech artists. They are also planning to renovate courtyard buildings to obtain a larger exhibition space.

Come and see for yourselves. They are located at 85 Bořivojova Street in Prague’s district of Žižkov.

Text vznikl v rámci kurzu Angličtina pro žurnalisty pod vedením Mgr. Aleny Proškové

Foto: Teodorik Mensl