17. 11. 2022 – 10. 12. 2022, opening 16. 11. 2022 6pm

After successfully defending his master thesis, Fragmentation of Visual Overload, in the
Intermedia 1 studio (School of Milena Dopitová) in 2021 at Prague’s Academy of Fine Arts, Jan
Hladík has continued to focus on public space and its informational congestion. As part of his
thesis, he was recycling, cutting advertising banners, and fragmenting and destroying original
information. He used the resulting materials to construct a new public space for a new spatial
installation with new content and functionality.

Our current era is one of prolonged social crises that continue to manifest in various forms. One
such manifestation has come in the form of social restrictions to curb the spread of coronavirus;
others take the form of global and local conflicts. These are just a couple of the most notable
examples. This extended difficult period has affected both our individual lives and our individual
artistic practice.

The works of Jan Hladík do not directly deal with social crises, but the questions of public space
and manifestations of information are closely related to social processes/developments, and it’s
those topics that he is personally tied to. In this period, the author has stopped working with
three dimensional solutions/realizations and is instead working with the two-dimensional
medium of painting. There exists an ever-present feeling of tension between our privacy—a
space that we have been pressed into by the aforementioned social circumstances—and
shared environments/spaces. The process of painting forces us to work within the boundaries of
a clearly defined plain area; contrary to this limitation, wider space is projected in Jan Hladík’s
painting. He seems to be searching for a universal/absolute language in an environment
continuously being filled by information and shared uncertainty.

Jan Hladík reacts to this informationally overloaded space by creating the least amount of
information possible. He is reducing visual and non-visual information to visual fog. Even though
it may be possible that the motif reflects the current existential/social conditions, limitations, and isolation, the complete installation and realization of his paintings is happening again in three-
dimensional space and the concrete qualities that entails.

Curator: Lexa Peroutka

Photos: Peter Kolárčik