One hundred and fourteen beer mats from the pubs, canteens and state hotels of communist Czechoslovakia, 1950s to 1980s — rescued by the stack, in Prague, with Glen Emery: Jo's Bar, the Repre Klub, the Thirsty Dog, Bukowski's. Publican, collector of the Eastern Bloc, legend. This file is for him. Na zdraví, Glene. †2024
Subject: EMERY, Glen — publican, Prague
EMERY, Glen. Canadian. Arrived Prague when the paint of the old regime was still wet, and opened the doors the new city walked through: Jo's Bar on Malostranské náměstí, the Repre Klub under the Municipal House, the Thirsty Dog, Železné Dveře, Napa, Bukowski's. If you drank anything worth remembering in Prague in the last thirty years, there is a fair chance Glen poured the first one.
FOTOGRAFIE — THE SUBJECTGlen, holding court beneath the enamel signs — hat on, cigarette lit, mid-story. This is how the file remembers him, and how everyone who ever sat across a bar from him remembers him too. Photograph © Mark Baker, used with kind permission.
Subject and the photographer conducted repeated unauthorised expeditions across the Czech lands: flea markets at dawn, junk shops in spa towns, attics, cellars, and the back rooms of pubs that had not changed their curtains since 1974. Objective: Soviet and Eastern Bloc memorabilia, antiques, and the stories of the people and places attached to them. The subjects talked; Glen listened; everything interesting came home. One of the stashes recovered was a shoebox of beer mats, 1950s to 1980s — the file you are now holding. Na zdraví, Glene. †2024
SPOLUPRACOVNÍK — THE ASSOCIATEThe photographer, logged at the bar, evidence in hand. Every file carries two names; the other half of these expeditions stands behind the camera in every remaining frame.
How a beer mat happened in a planned economy: the apparatus of thirst, from the Central Committee down to the cardboard under your glass.
The object itself, described for the record: 107 millimetres of absorbent state cardboard, one to three spot colours, function — coaster, receipt, and now: evidence.
And the colours themselves, catalogued: every ink in the file reduces to these fourteen — sampled from the scans, not imagined.
