František Matoušek: Jeans, scissors and spray

A publication presenting the author's original technology of scrubbed denim instead of canvas.

Matoušek's tendencies in his work are most clearly reflected in images depicting either directly close people, as was the case with his children on the large formats of the series Kindertherapie (2011), or places he has visited and has an intimate relationship with, be it the Brooklyn waterfront Coney Isladu or Benirras Beach in Ibiza. The almost abstract landscape series from the Berounka basin, where he went to paint during the lockdowns of the first pandemic year, shows a directly diary character, which is further emphasized by the exact date of each of the completed canvases.

Another way, at first glance a little less obvious, is to depict more or less well-known personalities, with whom one identifies for various reasons, or, on the contrary, feels contempt for them. In this way, František Matoušek does not pay tribute to the person in question, nor does he settle accounts with him. He perceives his model more as a symbol or embodiment of some principle or destiny. An extreme recent case is the portrait of Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels (2022), which is Matoušk's harsh reaction to the current political reality.

Perhaps the third most important connection between art and life experience is encoded directly in the original technology by František Matoušek. It is so exceptional that it has literally become synonymous with his work. This is a combined work with denim, where the mat itself, on which he usually creates an image by means of the precise pulling of white threads from the textile warp, which he supplements with picturesque interventions, represents a fundamental meaning-making factor. During the previous regime, when he was growing up, jeans represented unaffordable clothing with an almost political charge, which, in addition to style, was also an expression of a certain attitude. Even when someone was wearing them, it was clear that they must be from the West, i.e. hostile and forbidden zones separated by barbed wire and incompatible with the profile of a socialist person.

The exhibition is being accompanied by a bilingual publication with an introduction by curator Radek Wohlmuth and an interview with the author by Marie Bordier.

Curator: Radek Wohlmuth
Texts: Radek Wohlmuth and Marie Bordier
Graphic design: Jana Vahalíková
Production: Blanka Čermáková, Veronika Čechmánková
Photography: Marcel Rozhoň
Translation: Phil Jones
Text proofs: Tereza Hubáčková
Number of pages: 90
2022