Surreal Art of Resistance: Zdenek Kríž
(1950, Prague- 2016, New York
An illustrated talk by Marcy Arlin and friends
Thursday, March 19, 2026, at 7 PM
Bohemian National Hall, Manhattan
The presentation showcased Czech artist Zdenek Kríž’s work in the social, artistic, psychological, and cultural context of the surrealist movement under the communist regime in Czechoslovakia, focusing on the resilience and talent of a dissident and refugee. In approximately 30 works. Zdenek’s artwork draws on the Czech folklore and its satiric outlook, along with presentation slides of his lighting designs in New York.
Zdenek Križ trained in painting and design at Prague’s School of Applied Arts and later studied film technology. Early in his career, he created bold visual work for the Theatre of Film and Music—until the 1970s, when his politically charged paintings and satirical ink drawings led to a government ban on exhibiting. In the mid-70s, he joined the legendary Laterna Magika, touring across Europe and Canada. During a 1983 tour, he hid his canvases in costume bins and defected in Belgium, eventually settling in New York City. There, while continuing to paint, he became a sought-after lighting designer in the Off Off Broadway scene, collaborating with OBIE-winning companies and earning a reputation for painterly, atmospheric designs. After the Velvet Revolution, he finally regained a Czech passport in 1994 and returned home, turning to pastels to capture the renewed landscapes of a country he had once been forced to flee. He was married to Marcy Arlin until his premature death ten years ago.
Marcy Arlin was a theatre professor at the City University of New York and is now a writer of science fiction and fantasy. Her work has been published in Daily Science Fiction, Diabolical Plots, Conspiracies & Cryptids, and elsewhere. She is a member of Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers (BSFW). She met Zdenek while working at Henry Street Settlement, where he was the resident lighting designer. As Artistic Director of the OBIE-winning Immigrants’ Theatre Project, Marcy has worked with hundreds of award-winning actors as well as those at the beginning of their careers, including actors from over 90 countries and backgrounds. She produced and directed the ground-breaking Czech Plays in Translation series, featuring plays from the 20th century plus post-89 new works, resulting in the book Czech Plays: 7 New Works, published by Martin E. Segal Publications. She also directed plays and taught classes through the Fulbright Program in Romania and the Czech Republic.
Video recording will be available on our YouTube Channel later.
This event is organized by the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU), New York, with the support of the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association (BBLA)
