Crime Scenes

Exhibiting artists: Tomáš Císařovský, Pavel Dušek, Františka a Tim Gilman, Jana Kasalová, Krištof Kintera, Stanislav Kolíbal, Tadeáš Kotrba, Vladimír Kopecký, Ivana Lomová, Martin Mlateček, Alice Nikitinová, Viktor Pivovarov, Michal Rittstein, Jaroslav Róna, Zbyněk Sekal, Michal Škapa, Michal Škoda, Jakub Špaňhel, Jan Vytiska

Architecture appears in visual art in surprisingly many forms: as a precise structure, a blurred memory of a particular place, the backdrop of a human story, a mysterious installation, and as a motif in its own right. The exhibition Crime Scenes at Trafo Gallery presents paintings, pictures, sculptures and objects by leading Czech artists for whom the reflection of architecture plays an important role. From Stanislav Kolíbal, Vladimír Kopecký, Viktor Pivovarov and Michal Rittstein, through Tomáš Císařovský, Michal Škoda, Krištof Kintera, Ivana Lomová, Jakub Špaňhel and Michal Škapa, to Lukáš Machalický, Alice Nikitinová and Jan Vytiska. The broad range of generations and styles shows how intensely and differently architecture can enter the work of individual artists.

The exhibition includes concrete and stylized buildings, streets and urban panoramas. It moves from expressive seeing, through the reduction of reality, to constructivist thinking about space, order and the relationships between parts. Here, buildings remain more than a mere image of a place. They set the scale, rhythm and atmosphere of a picture or an artifact, and they show a town or village as a living structure through which we move every day. A person appears within it as a resident, guest, passerby, observer and also the main actor of events, for whom a house offers protection from the outside world. We can sense their presence even when they are not directly depicted: it is already a lasting part of the spirit of the place. Houses appear from the outside, yet we can also enter their interiors, break them down into geometric shapes, or isolate a single fragment, a window, a staircase, a pillar or an arch. Each artist, a different viewpoint. Architecture becomes a means through which we can speak about life and about the world we create around ourselves. It helps us understand who we are.

From 23 January 2027, the exhibition Souls of Houses at the Alšova jihočeská galerie in Hluboká Castle will follow on from the show at Trafo Gallery. The theme is developed within a radically different architectural and historical setting, which gives it a new dimension.