Matěj Janák (*1988) may be well-known to the inhabitants of Prague without their conscious recognition. Up until now, he has primarily cultivated his independent artistic practice outside the conventional gallery setting. Yet, for his first exhibition, ‚Dead Inside Will Never Die,‘ there will be no typical transition of street art into a gallery context. Janák has crafted an intuitively narrative environment that guides visitors through a journey that is anything but linear, through the fate that is uniquely his own. The objects and images, presented in a minimal, black-and-white aesthetic with a hint of irony, allow for a diversity of interpretations or,perhaps more aptly, sensations.
The core theme of Janák’s first solo show is the concept of a journey. It is no coincidence, then, that the exhibition unfolds as a series of loosely connected installations that interlace with one another. The individual stops, conceptualized as minimally defined spaces, are clearly tied to a personal mythology, symbolizing various stages of self-awareness and self-determination that everyone encounters in different forms throughout life. Here, Janák’s ‚subjective‘ endeavour to shift into the objective realm and personal experience subtly merges into a universally recognized collective consciousness.Moreover, the exhibition’s thoughtful design prompts an awareness of self-analysis, firmly situated in the mental sphere. Thus, if the metaphorical expression ‚going through something‘ is commonly used in daily discourse to denote life’s trials, this exhibition materializes such experiences, translating them from the abstract to the tangible. A diverse display of visual mediums, spanning from documentary lettrist collages of official notices and subpoenas, to mechanical optical raster and lighting technologies, offers varied channels of communication that engage both the intellect and the physical experiences.
Subtle yet essential, the common threads linking each object and installation involve the principles of cause and effect, and the crossing of boundaries, whose most common outcome is transformation. Janák abstains from constructing a rationalized, didactic intellectual framework; his method is intuitive, driven by feelings and emotional states that defy easy categorization. Employing conventional object symbolism like letters, candles, or mirrors, and the fundamental opposition of non/colours, such as black and white, and basic spatial arrangements, he foregrounds the viewer’s role. It is their presence within the quietly interactive space that fills the exhibition with purpose. After all, what is the value of a path if it remains untraveled? Particularly one that leads from the self, back to the self.
Translation: Anastasia Jegorová
Original text: Radek Wohlmuth
