heptameron | surrealism and the dream of the Renaissance

Date of the event

25. 2. 2024 — 12. 5. 2024

Place of the event

Alšova jihočeská galerie

The exhibition Heptameron appropriates the name of one of the erotic works of the French Renaissance, "a prodigal wealth of stories in a state of continuous metamorphosis," as Jindřich Štyrský characterized it, in order to trace the transformation of the relationship of distant time periods that affect each other as a trauma, but also as a fond memory. Both observed periods are connected by the theme of love, which underwent a fundamental development during the thirty years of the first half of the 20th century. The Renaissance thus appears in Czech surrealism as the force of erotic love transforming into a Revolution. In the spring of 1921, Karel Teige published the program article Images and foreshadowing about the new art emerging after the First World War. His idea was to establish a creation that builds the Arcadia of the new socialist world.