Petr Štembera

“Meanwhile, one of the people who did similar things and whom I respected the most was here. His name was Chris Burden and he was from USA, from LA. In 1976 he stayed a couple days at my place. He was then awarded a year-long curatorship of a private institution which was called the Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art. He probably liked my works. He went to Austria where he hired another guy and to Paris where he got Gina Pane. And he invited us all to participate. It wasn’t even clear whether it made sense for me to ask for permission to go there. I took the letter and went to the US embassy. The guy there told me: ‘Please, don’t show this to anybody, they would definitely not let you go. Your only chance is to request a tourist visa.’ So I did. And things had happened. I needed some sort of assurance. By chance, a classmate of my wife worked in a bank providing those assurances. She was working as a clerk and was in charge of issuing foreign exchange assurances. She gave me some US dollars and I went to the police to ask for permission to go. In the meantime somebody advised me to go on Saturday. They even worked Saturdays, it was great. One would go to Bartolomějská street but not into the prison building. So I brought it all there. And in two weeks they gave me the permission. I was perplexed. Then I realized that they had a record on me and perhaps thought that if they gave me the documents I would stay abroad. I have no idea why they gave me that permission. Anyway, I was able to spend a month in the US.”

“We made transcripts of Charter 77 and brought it with us to various places. I remember thinking that this was the most I would get involved in. And then I remember this great event in 1978. In Náplavní street, at this guy’s place, what’s his name? He was part of the underground, Ivan Bierhanzl. In his attic there was an exhibition of crazy drawings by Eugen Brikcius when he was a child. Everyone in Prague knew that. And whoever went there was aware of the risk. Because wherever one would go, everyone would say: ‘Evžen will be there, that will be good.’ But we also knew that they would come and do a bust. And so they did. A bunch of people attended. And a number of cops arrived. As they knocked on the door, everyone began to pull the Charter transcripts from their pockets hesitating where to hide them. People shoved it behind a stove, behind paintings; meanwhile it was falling from behind those paintings. It was amazing. They let us go one by one. I remember that Petr Rezek was also there. And they went like: ‘Aha, Mr. Rezek.’ But they let him go, in fact, they arrested practically nobody.”