Luděk Rathouský & Zbyněk Sekal | Trapped Emotions

Luděk Rathouský & Zbyněk Sekal | Trapped Emotions
21/02/25–08/06/25

curator: Pavel Kubesa | White Cube
photo: Jan Kolský

Trapped Emotions is an intergenerational artistic dialogue between two truly distinctive representatives of Czech art. The first, Luděk Rathouský, is an unwavering solitary force in Czech painting and a member of that generation of artists whose work at the start of the new millennium was shaped by conceptual thinking. The second, Zbyněk Sekal, is a painter, draughtsman and sculptor from the generation that evolved from the groundwork laid by Czech informel in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

The exhibition’s dialogue between the work of these two artists, who never met in person, offers insight into the “structural games” of visual and spatial abstraction. Nevertheless, in its basic principles and in the personal dedication of the artists, their art – represented by Rathouský’s Štiavnica Prints (Štiavnické listy, 2022) and by Sekal’s works from the collections of GMU, the Klatovy / Klenová Gallery and the Gallery of Modern Art in Roudnice nad Labem – transcends mere formalist definitions. While Sekal’s work moves along the edges of existentialist thinking, Rathouský draws more on theoretical considerations and a familiarity with the principles of medieval spiritual painting. Placed in synergetic interaction, their work opens up possible interpretations allowing for an emotional exploration of fundamental issues of philosophy as well as purely aesthetic questions.

The exhibition was supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic and the Statutory City of Hradec Králové.