Film Forum

Charlotta Kotik, Curator Emerita of Contemporary Arts at the Brooklyn Museum, is a native of Prague. She comes from an illustrious family – her great grandfather Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk was the founder and the first President of Czechoslovakia, and her father a respected art historian. Her family background limited her access to higher education during the Communist regime. Through sheer perseverance Charlotta achieved a degree in art history during the period of Prague Spring. Disillusioned after the Warsaw Pact invasion and after Jan Palach’s heroic act (depicted in BURNING BUSH), she emigrated with her young son and husband, composer Petr Kotik, to the United States to work at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo. After moving to New York City her career flourished at the Brooklyn Museum where she established important ongoing programs and curated 100+ exhibitions of contemporary art. She currently works as a writer, lecturer, and independent curator.

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