Jakub Janovský: Silicon Family

Bilingual catalog for the exhibition of the same name with an introductory text by curator Otto M. Urban.

Jakub Janovský graduated from the Drawing Studio of Jitka Svobodová at the Prague AVU in 2010, a year earlier he started working in the Trafačka studio in Vysočany, where he worked until its end in 2014. Even before that, in Jihlava, he started creating ephemeral drawings in abandoned interiors and exteriors, a peculiar form of artistic entry into public space, wall sketchbooks that often contain motifs that subsequently appear in paintings. These temporary entries, in which the author continues to the present, often use the real state of the objects, including fallen or demolished walls and plaster.

Even then, motifs associated with childhood, as well as with violence and a special sexual fetishism, were frequent in Janovský's work. His work gives the impression of the unspoken, they are not beyond the apparent edge of the visible, but even more beyond the edge of emotional perception. Janovský has never worked in hectoliters of blood or with pure pornography, for him a hint is stronger than explicit information. Gloomy and anxious visions of childhood were the first to be prominently presented in the Czech environment by Josef Bolf. He opened up a big topic, which is now completely established in contemporary art and is dealt with by a number of authors. An advantage, but also a possible problem, of topics related to childhood and adolescence is its breadth and richness, which can lead to sentimental talkativeness. However, Janovský's visions are laconic, austere, direct, sometimes even unpleasantly so. In his paintings, family relationships become rather tightening bonds, manipulating and deforming individual individuals. Identity and individuality are hidden behind masks or hoods, the initiation ritual can begin.

Curator of Exhibition and Text: Otto M. Urban
Exhibition and Catalogue Production: Blanka Čermáková
Graphic Design: Anna Issa Šotolová, Imagery.cz
Photos: Tomáš Rasl, Ondřej Polák a archiv autora
Translation: Phil Jones
Text Proofs: Tereza Hubáčková
Print: Indigoprint s. r. o.
Paper: Postcard cardboard 300g
Print Run: 333