Otto M. Urban
HIDDEN Podcast: David Lynch – Up in Flames with Otto M. Urban
Description:
Dive deep into the creative realm of David Lynch with curator Otto M. Urban in this revealing episode of the HIDDEN Podcast. Up in Flames at Prague’s DOX is the most comprehensive exhibition of Lynch’s visual art ever presented anywhere in the world—over 400 works spanning from the mid-1960s to early 2024, including lithographs, drawings, watercolours, photographs, films, and installations
What You’ll Discover
The Curatorial Vision: Urban reveals why he structured the exhibition thematically rather than chronologically, focusing on motifs like insects, fire, ruins, dream-logic, and disturbance.
The Collaboration: Learn how the curatorial team worked directly with Lynch and his estate to shape this ambitious project in the months before his death
Thematic Highlights: Explore complete series such as Distorted Nudes and the Twin Peaks cycle—rarely shown in this depth and scale.
Cultural Reflections: With Filip Kartoušek and Kamil Princ, Urban discusses the crisis of visual attention today—how oversaturation erodes our ability to see deeply and how reading and creation can restore sensitivity.
Educational Philosophy: Otto argues that “aesthetics” shouldn’t be taught in schools as theory. Instead, children should draw, build, sing—only through making do we learn to perceive.
Standout Quotes from the Episode
“Children don’t need to be taught what beauty is. They need to draw, sing, and make things. That’s how you teach them to see.”
“Reading long texts is essential. It trains the eye. If we don’t read, we can’t look.”
About Otto M. Urban (b. 1967)
Otto M. Urban is a noted Czech art historian, curator, and educator whose scholarship spans Czech and international art from the late 19th century to the present. A Ph.D. graduate in Art History and Aesthetics from Charles University (2000), Urban taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague—serving as department head of Art Theory and History from 2012–2016 before leading the 19th‑century art collections at the National Gallery Prague from 2017. Since 2020, he has served as Head Curator at DOX Centre for Contemporary Art.
His curatorial achievements include major exhibitions such as In Morbid Colours: Art and the Idea of Decadence in the Bohemian Lands 1880–1914 (2006), Decadence Now! Visions of Excess (Rudolfinum, 2010), retrospectives of Joel‑Peter Witkin (Brno, 2010), Gilbert & George (DOX, 2010), and David LaChapelle (Rudolfinum, 2011). He also co-curated 1796–1918: Art of the Long Century at the National Gallery Prague in 2024–2025.
This conversation is in Czech.
