The lime-green-framed postcard around town announcing a new contemporary art festival is enigmatic. It's a black-and-white photo of a messy-haired woman sitting on the edge of a bed, lifting her leg against the wall to pull up a knee-high boot. She is dressing in black leather for the night ... or to go back into the night.

The reverse side notes that "tina b. invites you to The Prague Contemporary Art Festival," with dates and locations. More significant is the fine print at the bottom, noting an impressive sponsorship of more than a dozen companies and the patronage of both the city of Prague and the culture minister.

None of which answers the obvious questions: Is tina b. the sexy woman on the front of the card? Or a curator, perhaps, or notorious young artist from the West whom we in the backwaters of Prague have simply never heard of?

The answer is none of the above. tina b. is a clever acronym for "This Is Not Another Biennale," a reaction to last summer's debacle with Prague hosting two competing art biennales.

One, organized by the publishers of Flash Art International, a prestigious arts magazine based in Venice, was an independent effort mounted after the organizers had a falling-out with Milan Knížák, director of the National Gallery for Modern Art. Knížák, not to be outdone, put on his own biennale at Veletržní palác. The competing shows divided the local arts community, with artists and curators sworn to allegiance to one side or the other.

Ironically, tina b. will be using spaces occupied by both biennales. The first opening, May 18, is at the spacious Karlín Hall, a vacant factory up until just a few years ago and the home of the Flash Art biennale. Large multimedia installations will be presented there to full effect, since the space retains the atmosphere of the alternative art and performance spaces that flourished in Prague just after 1989.

On June 1, there will be an opening of the main group of exhibitions at Veletržní palác. There will also be a smaller show opening on that date at the intimate Nová síň gallery space, and a performance by Scandinavian sound artists at the Jan Žižka Monument on Vítkov hill in Žižkov.

This festival will have neither the international star power of last year's biennales nor the huge budget to match Knížák's state-of-the-art multimedia event. However, many of the artists invited are provocative, well-known names, such as German Thomas Ruff, The Blue Noses Group from Russia and Bubu De La Madeleine, a Japanese performance artist who is also a prostitute.

The organizers have also made an effort to include more local artists in the festival, as it was apparent after so many big-name artists from around the world were exhibited in Prague last summer that worthy Czech and Slovak artists are still struggling for attention and recognition.

Altogether, the festival will include about 70 artists from countries around the world, including Mexico, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. Curatorial themes (from a total of nine) include "Oy/Eh," which juxtaposes art from Finland and Canada; "Same Same But Different," which addresses the status of highly valued art objects versus copies and fakes; and "Peep Show," which will present works on the nebulous border between art and pornography.

This last theme in particular, combined with the risqué postcard announcing the festival, should help generate public interest. But it also reinforces the old adage "sex sells" — a reality not very different from the current situation of artists, curators and gallery owners in this region, where contemporary art has yet to find an enthusiastic and supportive audience. The art market here seems weaker than ever when contrasted to the buying frenzy under way in the West; a Picasso portrait titled Dora Maar with Cat recently sold at Sotheby's for $104 million (2.3 billion Kč).

It may be understandable that international art collectors are more or less oblivious to contemporary Czech art. But that's also the case among the richest Czechs in the new economy. According to organizer Monika Burian of the Vernon Fine Art Gallery, one of the long-term aims of tina b. is to persuade both the rich and middle class that "it is a prestige thing to own a painting."

The name of the organization created to stage tina b. — Prague Art Future — carries the hope of a change in public perception and support. The festival is also aiming to serve as an annual platform for encounters between Central and East European countries and the rest of the art world.