The Cabinet of Curiosities section of the exhibition How to Collect Art: The Karel Tutsch Story introduces visitors to Karel Tutsch’s early collecting activities through a set of ex libris – a collection of small-scale applied graphic art. From here, Tutsch’s interests logically expanded to include fine art prints. Over time, the Cabinet of Curiosities will present various artists and their works on paper that form an indispensable part of the collection.
Artist and teacher Jiří David is one of the most distinctive figures on the Czech art scene. His art, writings and commentaries touch on painful aspects of our rapidly changing society, which nevertheless remains founded on the same animalistic fear of nothingness: a fear that we try to suppress through our lust for power and money, which we use to forget. For the generation that emerged onto the art scene in the 1980s with the unofficial Confrontations exhibitions, of which Jiří David was a co-organiser, the driving force behind their art was the need to break free from the rules of the system and from the conventions of the Normalisation-era art scene.
In his work, David responds to his era’s turn to legends, myths and fantastical astroarchaeology. He creates sophisticatedly primitive scenes resembling ancient rituals and hallucinogenic visions of archetypal experiences that remain in our consciousness and influence our actions (examples include drypoints and mezzotints such as Twin, Pain, Victim and Wedding Witnesses, all from 1985).
David’s works are a puzzle, a riddle composed of various pieces of the world – visible and imaginary, public and private. The whole by necessity eludes us, for one cannot see its outer contours from within, nor can we identify the details of its inner workings from the outside. Despite its ambiguous meanings and variability in terms of genre, style and choice of materials, his art provides us with an opportunity to reflect not only on what is depicted but also on ourselves – on the genesis of our convictions and the traces that we (and David, too) leave on our surroundings.
Despite the radical nature of many of his interventions and his frightening visions evoking scenes of violence, Jiří David remains an idealist who has not lost hope or his sense of humour. His unceasing activities in the public space remind us that there is still a chance for salvation.
Karel Tutsch first met Jiří David in 1987 during preparations for the exhibition Young Prague Artists, organised for Tutsch’s Na bidýlku gallery and for the University Club in Brno by curator Igor Zhoř. The gallery subsequently held five exhibitions of David’s work, of which Total Distance at a Time of Social Pallor (June 1988) had the force of a manifesto of the times. Besides the photographic series Hidden Image (1991–1992), the core of the collection’s extensive set of works by David (49 items) consists of the cycles Bohemia and Home, in which the artist explored Czech national symbols and how they have been emptied of meaning. The collection also includes several original drawings that David made for various exhibition catalogues (27 items).
