A private house builds a canon

Pražák Palace began as an elite nineteenth-century residence and became state property after the Communist takeover of 1948. The Moravian Gallery assumed responsibility for it in 1985, adapted its connected domestic rooms for exhibitions and opened the collections here in 1993. Today it holds modern and post-1945 art, a specialist library, an art-lending service, a publicly visible sculpture store and even a slide between exhibition floors. This is canon-making with its machinery partly exposed. A museum does not simply show art; it stores far more than it displays, arranges chronology and decides which works meet one another. Look at the palace windows and imagine the selection process occurring behind every one.