Lucie Hošková
Jsme Jenom Dunící Kov (We Are Just Resounding Metal)
HIDDEN Bořivojova
26. 8. 2025 / 22. 9. 2025
Solo exhibition by Czech painter Lucie Hošková, contrasts exhumed canvases stretched on rusted steel frames with anatomical studies of the human body. A meditation on decay, presence, and faith, where earth, wind, and flesh meet.
The title of the exhibition comes from the Bible, specifically the First Letter to the Corinthians, and also appears in Andrei Tarkovsky’s film Andrei Rublev. Hošková connects it with her own work with metal: she perceives metal frames not only as a technical element, but also as a symbol of weight, resonance, and the body itself. On these frames she installs canvases that she first buries in the ground and later exhumes. Traces of soil and moisture seep into the material, giving it the appearance of skin, a record of time and bodily transience.
In contrast to these objects, she places anatomical studies of the human body. On one side there is precise observation, on the other the mark of decay. The two dimensions meet in a single space and open a dialogue between presence and disappearance, two forms of earthly embodiment.
Recently, Hošková has moved away from the effort to condense complex concepts into a single image. She develops individual themes in series, which allows them to resonate more clearly. As she herself says, she strives “to have as little as possible on the canvas, but everything in its content.” This minimalism creates space for atmosphere that acts directly, without ornament.
She is also interested in attention to subtle phenomena. In her series on wind, she tries to capture the moment when one blade of grass moves and the other does not yet. She was inspired by the texts of David Tibet, in which the wind acquires animistic qualities and becomes a symbol of spiritual presence. His album If a City Set Upon a Hill contains the image of a “fox crowned by the wind,” a poetic motif that comes alive in her paintings as a meditation on the intangible and the transient.
The exhibition We Are Only Resounding Brass presents a body of works in which earth, wind, and the human body intersect. It is not an aestheticization of death, nor a mere reflection on decay, but rather a visual meditation on presence, faith, and impermanence — on what remains within us even as we slowly fade away.
Lucie Hošková first presented her work in the exhibition at HIDDEN Republika, followed three months later by her inclusion in the program of the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art, one of the most significant institutions in the Czech Republic. Her first solo exhibition, The Smell of Vagina and Disinfectant, took place at Artspace NOV in Pardubice, where she boldly addressed themes of the body and intimacy. Jsme Jenom Dunící Kov (We Are Just Resounding Metal) marks her second collaboration with HIDDEN Gallery, reaffirming the gallery’s continuous interest in her practice.