Jiří Thýn – The Butterfly of Hope

Curators: Anežka Chalupová and Vít Novák

For visual artist Jiří Thýn, the primary means of expression is photography. However, he is constantly exploring this medium, analyzing and re-evaluating it, often on both a conceptual and more intuitive level. His photographic works always touch on themes that are personally relevant to him. In his earlier series, for example, he made reference to important sculptors of the last century, using their sculptural work as a model or starting point for testing the limits of photography. Through multiple exposures of Gutfreund’s Cubist sculptures, he explored themes of space and abstraction. Alongside the works of Alina Szapocznikow, he reflected on the physical (one might say, injurious) intervention into the surface of the photograph and the relationship between this surface and a more complex, sculpturally constructed installation. At other times, he paints on photographs, adds text, cuts into them surgically, layers materials, and so on.

In his latest series of works (LOVE LIFE and UGLY NOW), he continues to deviate from conceptual principles and focus more on immediate emotions, capturing fleeting moods through spontaneous, relaxed gestures in digital images. By merging and connecting elements, he creates new visual patterns that reflect feelings from lived experience.

Working with photographic material, whether found or original, is a long-standing and concentrated journey for him, where he integrates visual stimuli into his conceptual space. He continues to deconstruct, modify, and engage in a dialogue with these stimuli, presenting them in a reworked form. The photo-editing tools in computer programs, which Thýn deliberately uses against their intended function, allow him to introduce unexpected elements into the photographic world—moments that are a direct response to his internal state.

Thýn’s latest works may come across as heavy in the context of a larger installation, as his current feelings and moods are often influenced by global issues. Rather than providing answers, they confront, provoke, and open up possibilities for alternative perspectives.

The installation at the Ústí nad Labem House of Art consists of lightboxes, large-format photographs, glass photographs, and video. It blends found and modified photographs with original digital drawings, mixing specific scenes with abstract ones. Thýn combines seemingly disparate scenes into a unified image, revealing underlying questions upon closer inspection. Themes include the carrying of a lifeless body, a praying mantis devouring a butterfly, a curious touch to an open wound, infinity, flames, eruptions, and fear. In the slow flow of a massive glacier’s meltwater, we might ponder: Does hope have an end?