Moving Horizons

“How do you make an exhibition like this?” There are many possibilities. In 1997, the eminent Czech curators Jiří Ševčík and Jana Ševčíková responded to this question in a way that is still inspiring today: “You have to find a question, the most important one, which you may not ask yourself without being forced to, but which you feel within yourself. It’s like being with something called the present – now.” [1] Their quote illustrates that curatorial work – and perhaps the creation of art in general – does not begin with an answer, but with uncertainty. What one rejects at the outset is of key importance, as it often contains discomfort, provocation, or the hidden absolute. The Ševčíks place the appeal to confront uncertainty firmly in the present moment. “Now” they suggest, continuously arises from discovering something authentic and urgent within oneself. This very urgency makes the present moment elusive and changeable, always in motion, never quite fixed in one meaning or response. In the 21st century, the driving force in this context is the daily dose of existential pessimism. It stems from the understanding that the world around us will no longer be as we have known it, leading us, among other things, to a fundamental question: what meaning should we seek in art education right now, in all our potential roles – whether as students, teachers or a curatorial duo?

How did we begin this exhibition? Together with fifty exhibiting graduates, for whom one important period of their lives is ending and a new one beginning, we have agreed on a metaphorical title – Obzory v pohybu / Moving Horizons. For the graduates of the Academy of Fine Arts, this title symbolises individual transformation – the culmination of their studies and entry into the uncertain realm of the present, as well as the question of one’s own identity at a moment that is both welcoming and daunting, as the framework of support in the art world changes. The horizons are not fixed but in a state of flux, both in the immediate space we inhabit and on a global scale. It is no coincidence that the international English version of the exhibition title was articulated first and this literally predetermined the local Czech title. It is not only horizons that are in motion, but also the language that defines us as human beings. Moving Horizons – Obzory v pohybu can therefore be seen as a metaphor for the dynamics of change, uncertainty and the constant reassessment of our own and society’s starting points today.

Our near and distant future is a fractured, distorted and disrupted structure. Boundaries – whether physical, cultural or ideological – are not fixed. There are constant political, environmental and technological upheavals. In both art and society, the roles of institutions, narratives and authorities are changing. Innocent people are dying – right now. The rest of us go on living our lives and are fortunate enough to pursue something as beautiful and exciting as art. Even in this time of escalating crises, the need for knowledge and creative self-development will eventually prevail.

The young generation of graduates from AVU in Prague is a Central European sample from which a receptive audience can gain concrete insights into what contemporary artists are doing today, what questions they are asking, what materials and forms they are experimenting with and what challenges they are encountering in their work. In this sense, we view the creation of the collective exhibition not only as care for this year’s graduating artists and their specific artworks but also as a manifesto of the continual search for a balance between personal expression in art and what emerges as universally relevant.

The Academy of Fine Arts in Prague has historically been a hub of public and professional debate about the values, continuity, and quality of artistic production. Terms such as tradition, craft and decline often arise in the context of criticism of contemporary art, an area in which the institution has long engaged and whose forms it has significantly influenced. Tradition is associated with a deeper understanding of an artistic discipline and, along with craft, is often seen as a lost element or as an opposition to experimental and conceptual approaches. Decline is a term that points to mediocrity, artlessness, commercialisation or the desire to provoke at any cost. At the opposite pole of contemporary art criticism, progressive voices argue that breaking down tradition and experimenting are the hallmarks of viable contemporary art and represent a necessary approach to art education. Unfortunately, the discourse between these differing perspectives often revolves around not just the art itself but also about which side of the barricade is deemed safe in the culture wars. This year’s exhibition of the graduating works offers more: a genuine and shared way to have this discussion – reflecting not only the presence of different approaches to art, but also the broader issues of values, the role of art in society, and the connection between historical consciousness and the needs of the present. Despite frequent claims about the decline of traditional craft at AVU, this year’s graduation exhibition demonstrates the opposite. It is not merely a formal showcase, but a testament to the persistence of the creative gesture – often quiet, laborious and unspectacular. The works present here show that contemporary art is not afraid to combine traditional media with experimentation, and that “craft” is not an anachronism but a means of finding expression that is both personal and topical.

The exhibition is dominated by handmade technologies in all their conceivable forms. Painting and sculptural experiments are accompanied by traditional technological methods; for example, Jitka Petrášová works with the wax batik technique, Klára Samcová with woven textiles and Kateřina Št’astná uses embroidery. To briefly characterise the different approaches, we can start with painting. In this year’s graduation exhibition, we can find expressive figurative painting by the aforementioned Jitka Petrášová and Martin Kolář. Through her creative process, Petrášová, in her thesis entitled Zahrady dnes zanedbané (Gardens Neglected Today), reflects on her origins and renews her relationship with that which was once alive and close, but now exists only in memory. Kolář’s boldly coloured paintings explore new forms of strangeness and, like Petrášová’s, display a strong personal stylisation. They can be complemented by playful paintings and those inclined toward primitivism by Marie Paterová and Denis Baštuga. Their works are characterised by a free painterly gesture and tend more towards abstraction. In contrast, Adéla Strnadová’s and Jolana Škachová’s paintings are realistic in nature; however, their techniques could not be more different. Strnadová has ventured into oil painting, creating a series of realistic portraits through which she relates to her own mother, exploring how two different generations perceive beauty. Conversely, Škachová consistently works in crayon. Her simple depictions of everyday life possess exceptional visual quality; employing a refined drawing technique she evokes sfumato or frottage. Other exhibiting students, such as Hedvika Ocásková and Julie Daňhelová (the latter focusing on the history of the Ore Mountains), also work with drawing and use various techniques to process traces of long-vanished settlements and their personal impressions of this remarkable region. Like Hedvika Ocásková, she develops the linear nature of her art through installation.

The themes of returning to roots, journeys to places of personal history, family, and home are addressed by several exhibiting students each year. In addition to Jitka Petrášová and Julia Daňhelová, this year’s artists include Tianrui Pan, one of the first graduates of the international Art in Context programme. Her installation Strangers, Sang for Me explores the Chinese Shui ethnic group and its contemporary representation in the so-called ethnic village. Identity issues are also addressed by Minh Thang Pham who attempted to learn traditional lacquer painting as part of his thesis project: “When I returned to Vietnam, I felt that I didn’t belong there anymore. They made demands and imposed traditions on me that were already unfamiliar and I did not perceive them as my own. But through art, especially traditional lacquer painting, I wanted to reconnect with my roots.”[2] Repeating tradition in the present did not seem sufficient, so he sought other ways to process and communicate his personal Czech / Vietnamese history, memory of place, and the processes involved. A number of other projects focus on family relationships and personal history, including those by Kateřina Šťastná, Darina Molatová, Paula Gogola, Anna-Maria Berdychová, Nela Bártová, and Klára Samcová. Kateřina Šťastná’s thesis, Moje tělo vedle Tvého (My Body Next to Yours), examines physical reality, exploring the archetypal relationship between mother and child through traditional and non-traditional techniques, addressing themes of growth, interdependence, and detachment. Her work is based on realistic modelling, as is Darina Molatová’s sculptural installation. In her rendition, however, the body takes the form of intangible shells that depict states of vulnerability and permeability. The large-scale reliefs by Ekaterina Gordeladze, who also draws on 20th century figurative sculpture, can be compared to the works of Darina Molatová and Kateřina Šťastná. All three artists explore relational situations and the possibilities of connecting the body with space. However, Ekaterina Gordeladze’s shallow relief fragments of bodies depicted in various situations do not evoke anxious feelings but convey more optimistic emotions.

The material nature of the works is also important for other participating students, as is their spiritual content and laborious handiwork. Nela Bártová has found an adequate means of expression for her fragile emotions in fused glass, crafting forms from mostly organic materials and thereby pushing the boundaries of glass technology. She complements the installation of objects with light and other elements. Klára Samcová works with textiles, handmade paper and other handmade materials in her project entitled Rozplétání předem určených cest (Unravelling Pre-defined Paths). Her main theme is motherhood – deciding whether or not to become a mother – and the broader social discourse surrounding this issue. Anna-Marie Berdychová conceives her work as a complex spatial object in the form of a glass house inspired by the aesthetics of the 1990s. In her case, the dominant material is also glass, which has long been the subject of the artist’s interest. The emphasis on intertwining material precision with personal mythology is also found in Paula Gogola’s installation. Through her immersive work with space, this artist captures the most intimate moments of her personal story and invites the viewer to rethink their relationship with sociopolitical structures.

In all of these projects, we find a shared closeness that is not only the story of individual graduates but also resonates with the general human experiences that shape our society. Drawn from lived personal histories and traumas, their work is interwoven with unique experiences, joys and disappointments. In 2024, when Šárka Weberová, therapist and co–founder of the Institute for Healing and Prevention of Trauma, wrote the text for the catalogue of the exhibition of students from Intermedia Studio I at Uhelný mlýn in Libčice nad Vltavou, she reflected on these very aspects of contemporary art: “The young artists, in connection with themselves and their inner selves, testify to sources of strength, unrealised desires, the closeness of connection but also the separating distance, the absorbing destruction and centrifugal force within their own families. They offer us a diverse range of family dynamics and bonds. They make the invisible and the unseen visible.”[3] This also applies to the aforementioned works by Nela Bártová, Klára Samcová, Paula Gogola, Darina Molatová, as well as many others. The contemporary generation’s grounding in reality, sensitivity to social issues, inclusion of all psychic positions and discovery of the poetics of the everyday are closely intertwined with a tendency toward metaphysics, the institutionalisation of anxiety, and escapism.

It is perhaps not surprising that many of the theses reflect the depression and depressive feelings of the contemporary young generation. The theme of death and dystopia is even addressed in several theses, such as that by aforementioned Hedvika Ocásková, whose installation is entitled Sbohem a šáteček (Waving Farewell). Magdaléna Rajchlova’s project Být, ale nebýt u toho / Nebýt ale být u toho (To Be but not to Be There / Not to Be There) aims to guide the viewer through the process of dissociation, one of the typical reactions to the experience of trauma. Mária Jančová’s Polyphony of Absence touches on similar themes. Her sculptural and sound installation explores, among other things, the resonant potential of various materials, supplemented by strings from guitar, piano and string instruments. The central theme of Samuel Stano’s thesis Štíty nepřítomnosti (Shields of Absence) is the deformation of reality and its mutability under the influence of external and internal forces. A key role is played by the wisewomen – symbols of higher power and inscrutability – who observe the transformations of the Anthropocene from a distance. This framework opens up a space for exploring the microcosm of human endeavour, conflicts and the desire for knowledge.

Several thesis projects deal with the process of regeneration. This emphasis was also strongly present last year, when the curator of the graduates’ exhibition, Lamija Čehajić, characterised the exhibited works in the catalogue with input from the exhibitors themselves as follows: “They provide nurturing and promote a good night’s sleep, remove the dust from memories, induce a state between waking and dreaming, cure loneliness, are an anesthetic or antioxidant, replenish energy, help us look inward and encourage the blossoming of the imagination.”[4] All of this is also true of this year’s presentations (e.g., Darina Molatová, Jitka Petrášová, Mikuláš Juráček, Minh Thang Pham and Dorota Václavíková). But how do they differ? This may come as a surprise that this year’s graduates are not significantly socially engaged. There is a lack of strong political topics, as well as environmental ones.

The only contributions to these themes are the projects of three male graduates and one female graduate from the School of Architecture, who explored issues of circular infrastructure and sought to create an image of inclusive architecture that meets contemporary environmental needs: Barbora Výborová designed the Municipal Circulation Centre Brno, Alex Máslo designed the Recycling Centre Smíchov, David Budil designed unspecified circulation houses and Ondřej Fiedler worked on the transformation of a former shopping centre in Jihlava into a new circulation house, the so-called Collection House. Their focus was on material flows and waste management. They engaged with new technologies of reuse, recycling or upcycling to ensure this infrastructure becomes a fully integrated part of the living environment of our cities.

In addition to the lack of emphasis on the environmental crisis of our time, the absence of video in this year’s graduation exhibition is surprising. Moving images are used only as part of the installation by Tianrui Pan and Michael Jan Bublík. However, that doesn’t mean that the younger generation has given up on new media technologies. Video has been replaced by sound, which appears in several of the graduation projects. In the case of Adam Soukup’s installation Life Outside the Cube, it even plays a central role. In the entrance space of the AVU building in Veletržní Street (a former music club), he created an interactive sound installation that thematises various musical subcultures and their social background. In many other projects, sound complements the atmosphere of the installation (Jan Poš, Lukáš Procházka, Omar El Sadek, Magdaléna Rajchlová) or serves as another means of expression (Anna-Marie Berdychová, Markéta Kubíčková, Nela Bártová, Mária Jančová).

The absence of performance is also remarkable. One of the few participatory projects in which performance forms an integral part is Laura Fiľáková’s installation. Her alternative hairdressing salon, made of sculptural objects, offers visitors the opportunity for personal transformation through original hairdressing services directly in the installation space. The virtual reality project V uchu velryby (In the Whale’s Ear) by Dorota Václavíková is also participatory in nature. While Fiľáková is primarily concerned with personal transformation through appearance, Václavíková explores issues of mental health and transformation through spiritual immersion. Marie Dobešová’s project, which investigates the connection between homelessness and mental illness, is exceptional. Her sculptural installation is inspired by specific individuals with these experiences and extensive artistic research.

In the realm of more traditionally conceived sculpture, several highly complex projects have been created this year. A massive wooden head of Jakub Brázda dominates the entrance area of the main building. It includes a renovated rabbit hutch serving as a self-service vending machine for art and souvenirs inspired by the central sculpture. Ondřej Navrátil has, in turn, ventured into the mythological past. His large-scale sculptural installation exploring time travel includes fossils and archaeological finds. Conversely, Lukáš Procházka’s installation Na google mapě není nikdy zataženo (On the Google Map It’s Never Cloudy) is inspired by the contemporary global warming. This thesis, presented in the form of an installation and objects set in architecture, explores the relationship between humans and digital technologies – their use, transformation and preservation. It focuses on the material / physical aspects of new media devices, which, under the influence of the accelerated present, become relics of their time from the perspective of media archaeology. Štěpán Kus, on the other hand, explores the theme of architecture in his sculptural work, specifically focusing on art on building facades. He draws inspiration from motifs found in original sculptural realisations and presents their possible contemporary form. Jan Poš’s work is also dedicated to updating sculptural practices. In his multimedia installation entitled Mýtus o hyperrealitě (The Myth of Hyperreality), he combines porcelain and plastic objects, elevating them through kinetics, LED lighting and sound – thus questioning the boundaries between the physical and virtual worlds.

Mikuláš Juráček’s spatial installation entitled Dotek (Touch) connects objects made of materials such as glass and ceramics with emotions. The visual language of his work is loosely inspired by musical terminology, by notions such as improvisation, reminiscence or bodily resonance. Omar El Sadek, who is the second graduate in the Art in Context programme, works with simple sculptures made of metal in his installation. As with Juráček’s work, sound is a significant part of the installation. Markéta Kubíčková’s Olfactory Stage installation works with sound, but also with other sensory elements such as smell and light conditions of the space, creating a complex environment, an ephemeral installation that will only take its final form at the moment of its presentation, through the micro–stories that will take place within it.

For a number of the graduates, the visuality of their resulting works, or rather installations, is determined by their specific attitudes towards our present. For example, Aaron Maximilian Mootz’s project Prah(r)a is based on creating art within the existing environment of the city in which he lives. He responds to what the urban environment offers at a particular time in a particular place, working with elements that actually exist in that place. The basic method of his unusual “landscape painting” is to be, see, create, document and move on. However, a somewhat more traditionally conceived landscape painting is also well represented in this year’s graduation exhibition.

Ilona Koroman captures the urban landscape from above through oil painting. Her project continues the long tradition of depicting space in the history of painting, while exploring the “bird’s eye view” as a specific way of perceiving the urban environment. In the context of contemporary art, this approach is particularly relevant in its attempt to connect traditional painting techniques with themes such as the perception of space and its psychological or emotional impact on the viewer. Žofie Eder’s project, Zvuk vnitřní krajiny ve vnějším světě (The Sound of the Inner Landscape in the Outer World), is based on her interest in landscape, horizon, solitude, but also ornament, exoticism and the fullness of existence itself. The central element is a series of paintings installed in space, accompanied by an original sound composition. Similarly, János Vámos’s paintings deal with the relationship between abstraction and realistic representation, the tension between emptiness and oversaturation, and the possibilities of personal and positively romantic transformation. His series of paintings creates its own landscape, a kind of in-between space between outdoor reality and the infinite surface of our displays. They are marked by an original aesthetic and experimentation with various materials. The theme of dreamscapes also appears in the sculptural work of Michael Jan Bublík and Ruslan Vysokikh. Bublík creates a strange environment through a multimedia installation dominated by an abstract sculpture cut into wood. Vysokikh, on the other hand, constructs a minimalist space that seeks to convey the fragility and malleability of the world in which we exist. He envisions interactions with viewers who can intervene in the spatial environment throughout the exhibition and help create a Dreamland. The layered papers hung on opposing walls thus become a metaphor for the modern history we all write every day.

The traditional segment of the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague includes the restoration majors. The theses of graduates studying these subjects cover a wide range of topics and challenging tasks: individual graduates engage in study of materials, address the completion of panel picture bases and wall oil paintings, tackle the restoration of sandstone and stoneware sculptures and remove oil repaints from polychrome tempera in wooden sculptures. Pavel Geryk’s thesis deals with the research of an altarpiece in the Church of the Most Holy Salvator in Prague and Anna Loudová conducts research on the Průhonice Altar and the restoration of one of its wings. Marie Knapová explores the theoretical and practical aspects of medieval mural oil painting through technological copies of wall paintings from St. Vitus Cathedral. Tereza Márová investigates the painting techniques of the Dutch Baroque painter Pieter Claesz. Daniel Novotný restores a larger-than-life stone statue of St. Adalbert from Veleliby and a wooden polychrome statue of the Angel on the Sphere as part of his thesis, while Edgar Mašek restores a panel painting of St. George from 1501 as one of his tasks. Ondřej Čechura works on the restoration of a sandstone statue of St. Procopius from the church in Veleliby and a ceramic statue of the goddess Ceres from the stained-glass workshop in Okrouhlá. Each of the graduates from the restoration study programmes has several challenging tasks ahead of them, complemented by theoretical, historical and chemical-technological issues. Sometimes, there are so many tasks that they cannot be completed within the time frame of the academic year. This is particularly true for two of last year’s graduates, Sára Syslová and Alena Študlarová, who did not defend their theses until the autumn of 2024 and thus were not included in last year’s catalogue. We have decided to include them in this year’s catalogue, even though their works are not on display in the current exhibition.

As the curators of previous graduation exhibitions have mentioned, this is primarily an “exercise in the area of care”, an activity that stems from the original meaning of curatorial work – curare (to care, to heal, to supervise, to administer, to ensure preparations). It has been a pleasure to participate in this process and to care for a while for the, in some cases already masterful and in others fragile, sprouts of contemporary art. This introductory text is written before the exhibition takes place and therefore cannot fully capture the complexity of the form of the individual thesis projects. It is a modest curatorial attempt to at least briefly outline the nature, themes, forms and materials of personal artistic statements in the process of their creation. Above all, we wanted this year’s graduates’ catalogue to reflect the contemporary atmosphere at AVU in 2025. Therefore, on 8 April, we invited all those involved inthe preparation of the theses to gather in front of the main building of the Academy – namely, the graduating students themselves, along with their teachers and other staff members (management, technical department, workshops, maintenance, economic, study, grant and exhibition departments, PR) – without whom this challenging exhibition project would not have been possible. We cannot but thank them all for their professionalism, willingness and considerable commitment accompanying the end of each academic year. Special thanks are due above all to the photographer Radek Dětinský, who sensitively captured our shared April afternoon and whose photographs determined the visuality of the catalogue you are holding in your hands.

It would be appropriate to conclude a text introducing several dozen young people to life after school and the art world of the future on a hopeful note. But where can we find optimism in these difficult and turbulent times, especially when we have lost faith that the world is automatically evolving for the better? The current generation of young people is entering a difficult situation: they must cope with many uncertainties, losses, but also opportunities and information that do not permit calm concentration.

We believe that, despite everything, these challenges will make them stronger and foster a new type of previously unknown resilience. After all, this is how humanity has always responded to its crises, of which there has been no shortage throughout history.

♥ Pavlína Morganová and Michal Pěchouček

1. Jana Ševčíková – Jiří Ševčík, Výchova psů v rodině. Psí otázky, in: Snížený rozpočet, catalogue of the exhibition, Prague: Mánes, 1998, unpaginated

2. E-mail from Minh Thang Pham to Pavlína Morganová and Michal Pěchouček of 25 March 2025.

3. Šárka Weberová, Untitled, in: Anna Sedláček Roubalová (ed.), Sdílená blízkost, catalogue of the exhibition, Uhelný mlýn, arto.to, 2024, unpaginated

4. Lamija Čehajić, Plané plody: poznámky k výstavě, in: Diplomky AVU 2024 / AVU Graduates 2024, catalogue of the exhibition, Prague: AVU, 2024, p. 4.