Jiří Petrbok, Kamil Princ – HIDDEN Editions #54

In their series “Dementor Never Sleeps,” Jiří Petrbok and Kamil Princ meet at the crossroads of painting and literature, which merge like infrared and ultraviolet radiation into one penetrating beam. At first glance, these are two hermetically sealed worlds, which, however, like separate windings of an electrical transformer, magnetically influence each other and thus interfere.

The theme of HIDDEN edition touches on the topic of the subconscious and dreaming. The nature of dreams with their biological and psychological aspects was already analyzed by Aristotle in his treatises “On Dreams” and “On Sleep and Wakefulness”, but Petrbok and Princ’s work mainly refers to the concepts of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who in his philosophical reflections thought about dreams in relation to metaphysics and the perception of reality. According to Leibniz, dreams can be considered a synthesis of memories and imagination, which are interconnected in the human subconscious as Ovidian metamorphoses of our perceptions influenced by unconscious processes.

In their frantic collages, Petrbok and Princ deconstruct these Paretian derivatives and sneak into our heads like the infamous “Dementor” to experience our own nightmares and reveal the dark sides of the human soul, just as a speleologist maps the dark corners of deep caves. In their daring works, they attack the boundaries of our everyday reality, behind whose mask perhaps a more terrifying truth is hidden than we are willing to admit. They test the limits of morality and social tolerance to the very limit, like an archer tensioning the string of his bow.

Referring to Roland Barthes' essay entitled "The Death of the Author", Petrbok and Princ also change the view of how one can approach not only literature, but also all art as such. First of all, it is about breaking down the author's tyrannical monopoly on the only correct definition of the content of his work. Art should retain its own unique identity, which is fully realized only in the mind and soul of its recipient.

Similar to Barthes's "decentralization of the text", the idea of ​​a work as a dynamic and multilayered object arises, which is not anchored by one singular interpretation, but opens up an entire multiverse of views. The paintings of Petrbok and Princ can therefore be understood as a territory for the creation of one's own ideological constructions and a stimulus for phenomenological investigation of the structures that surround us in the rhizomatic network of being. The exhibition in HIDDEN therefore gives visitors the freedom for their own unique interpretation, when even the most subtle detail can unlock hidden doors to new unsuspected spheres in its observer.

– Kamil Princ