RETRO?

Vernissage on Thursday, September 3, 2026, at 6:00 PM.

Guided tour on October 1 at 5:30 PM. Admission free.

Curator Radek Wohlmuth

The exhibition's title carries precisely the kind of ambiguity that Vít Soukup enjoyed.

On the one hand, it signifies a selective retrospective, commemorating the work of the prematurely deceased painter, filmmaker, and occasional graphic designer. On the other hand, it references his status as one of the first artists of his generation who wasn't afraid to genuinely incorporate retro elements into his work. For Vít Soukup, whom friends affectionately called Beruška (Ladybug), retro wasn't just a nostalgic-visual game; the authenticity of the motifs was paramount, which is why he repainted them from contemporary newspapers, magazines, and promotional prints.

Soukup's painting gradually evolved from juicy realism, through abstinent-neurotic expression, to realistic abstraction. His visual language was always firmly anchored in reality, yet he could simultaneously destabilize it and transform it into an image that was more than just a record of it. Vít Soukup had the ability to extract the essential from every theme he explored, characterizing both the era and its Czech footprint. In his early cycles, he focused mainly on what defined the socialist era's mindset. Food as a fetish of abundance, cosmic achievements as an official myth of progress, and furry Cossack hats as a fashionable grotesquery of everyday life. From his perspective, it wasn't sentiment but an analysis of the mental smog that surrounded society at the time. His seriously intended irony often went beyond the limits of awkwardness, and through it, he could name the mechanisms that shaped collective norms.

In the era of consumer democracy, his attention shifted to a different type of visual clutter. The IKEA series, painted according to commercial flyers, primarily shows swatches, carpet details, and other subjects that, as attractive goods, don't entirely make sense. These are fragments meant to sell a lifestyle, but in themselves, they are as devoid of content as their names. Vít Soukup reveals the aesthetics of globalized consumerism, in which man is reduced to a catalog user. Here too, he touches upon the Czech experience, namely the transition from scarcity to abundance, which is equally empty, just in a more colorful wrapper.

His last cycle, Armáda pro republiku (Army for the Republic), returns to figurines of East German Indians, warriors from newspaper photos and Kinder Surprise eggs, and action heroes from post-revolutionary films, as if they were modern-day Blaník knights, perhaps the only ones interested in defending the homeland of Švejks from potential danger. Vít Soukup once again employs irony, though this time its tone is noticeably darker. Especially in today's context, his paintings are unsettlingly topical.

Retro? is therefore not only a reminder of his work but also a return to the questions he posed. What constitutes Czech identity, how and whether our national values are changing, and why do some themes return with such stubborn persistence? Soukup's cycles are, among other things, a map of the national psychology of survival. The ability to ironize one's own situation, but at the same time take it seriously, because precisely this ambiguity is how Czechs cope with history. It is an exhibition that shows a painter who can be contemporary in any era, because he at least sensed that the past never completely disappears in our country – it just slightly changes its face.

Radek Wohlmuth

Thanks to Markéta Soukupová, GAVU Cheb, Marek Collection and private collectors for the loans. Special thanks to Jiří Gordon.