The main focus of Jan Macúch’s exhibition are large-scale paintings created as a visual accompaniment to Jiří Kamen’s collection of stories Elvis of Záluží (nominated for this year’s Magnesia Litera Award in the category of prose). More than accompaniment, however, the paintings engage in dialogue: Into each of his paintings, Macúch has composed something extra that not only illustrates the relevant story but adds to it and responds to it with its own “rejoinders”. Describing Macúch’s work, Kamen says that it reflects “his imagination, which uses unexpected brushstrokes and tricks to rearrange the set pieces of the contemporary world”. He creates caricature and persiflage, shifts meanings, invents hoaxes, creates myths, alienates, stages re-enactments of true events, banalizes pathos and ritualizes banality.

In addition, the exhibition also shows his most recent works, which in both form and content grows directly out of and complements his earlier series.