A group exhibition of four painters born around 1970, who in their creations accent exaggeration, irony and a poignant sense of work with kitsch which curiously hides personal depravity, as well as the dark depths of fear from the unknown.

Each of the artists uses completely different creative tools which significantly underline the characteristics of the works. Straka’s classic Chinese ink painting in its uncommon, monumental standard is in sharp contrast to the ironic themes of pure European provenience. The themes of the most depressed kitsch performed as if through the old masters’ chiaroscuro painting in the academic style by Martin Eder are an undisguised playing with the dejected appetite of wide social ranks. Conversely, in his sculptures, Jonathan Meese brilliantly opens the rich scale of the sculptural drama with reference to European sculptures over hundreds of years. Perhaps Josef Bolf delves the deepest in his technically very demanding paintings which thematically plunge into the obscure layers of unconsciousness and infantile remembrance. What all of the artists have in common is a firm basis of deeply understood and mainly experienced history of European culture and the artistic legacy with which they work with absolute certain knowledge of even the most minute details which they draw into their refined dramas, therefore creating a new meaning.

Petr Nedoma

Josef Bolf
Martin Eder
Jonathan Meese
Jiří Straka

Exhibition photographs
© Galerie Rudolfinum, Photo: Ondřej Polák