Miroslav Tichy
1926 - 2011
Solo Exhibitions
2009
Jiri Svestka Berlin, Berlin
Galerie Elisabeth & Klaus Thoman, Innsbruck
Dominik Art Projects, Krakow
Gallery Kewenig, Cologne, Germany
Galería Jule Kewenig, Palma de Mallorca
Ivorypress Madrid, Spain
2008
Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin
Centre national d’art et de culture Georges Pompidou, Paris (Retrospective)
Kunsthaus Bregenz, Bregenz
Museum of Modern Art Frankfurt (MMK), Frankfurt
Tanja Bonakdar Gallery, NYC
2007
BANG Gallery, Beijing and Shanghai
Central European House of Photography, Bratislava
Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo
2006
Presentation House Gallery, Vancouver
Galerie Sternberk, Sternberk CZ
Michael Hoppen Gallery, London
Michael Hoppen Gallery, London
Dům umĕní mĕsta Brna (Brno House of Art), Brno
De Hallen, Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem
2005
Nolan/Eckmann Gallery, New York
Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp
Galerie Arndt&Partner, Berlin
Kunsthaus Zurich, Zurich
Selected Group Exhibitions
2009
MKGalerie - Rotterdam
2008
Biennale of Sydney 2008, Sydney
Int. Triennale of Contemporary, The National Gallery, Prague
Magasin 3 Konsthall Stockholm, Stockholm
Financial crisis ...from our stock, Galerie Jirí Svestka, Prague
2007
Collection photographique, Centre Pompidou, Paris
Like Leaves, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, NYC
2006
Artists for Tichý – Tichý for Artists, Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Wörlen, Passau
5th International Ink Biennial, Shenzhen
Artists for Tichý – Tichý for Artists, East Bohemian Museum, Pardubice
Black Night, Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg
Déjà vue, Artibus Foundation, Ekenas
Artists for Tichý – Tichý for Artists, Moravska Galerie, Brno
2005
Prix de la découverte (Discovery Award), Rencontres de la Photographie, Arles
Arnulf Rainer and His Collection of Art Brut, La maison rouge, Paris
2004
Bienal Internacional de Arte Contemporaneo de Seville, Seville
1990
Von Einer Wellt zu’r Andern, Die Blaue Kunsthalle DuMont, Cologne
Public Collections
Centre Pompidou, Musée national d’Art Moderne, Paris
Galerie Klatovy/Klenová, Czech Republic
Haus der Photographie Deichtorhallen (F.C. Gundlach Collection), Hamburg
Kantonales Museum des Kantons Thurgau, Thurgau
La maison rouge, Fondation Antoine de Galbert, Paris
Magasin 3 Stockholm Konsthall, Stockholm
Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston
Museum of Modern Art (MMK), Frankfurt
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
ABOUT THE ARTIST
The genesis of Miroslav Tichý's (b.1926) remarkable photographic works was in the little town of Kyjov, southern Moravia. Dissapointed by the rejection of his works and rising state sensorship, Tichý abandoned his formal studies of drawing and painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague shortly after the Communist take over in 1948. He returned home to live a life of artistic solitude, focusing instead on his favorite motif, women. Over the next thirty years, with homemade cameras in hand, Tichý managed to produce a body of unique mixed media works, that yielded not only his perchant for voyeuristic fantasy, abstraction and embellishment, but also an innate understanding of the painterly potential locked with in the photographic medium.
For the majority of his life, Tichýs works went completely unnoticed by the public. Though his work was produced in a small town locked behind the iron curtain, it was more Tichýs Diogenian way of life that kept him an outsider artist. As such, his works speak from a shockingly non-postmodern perspective. Unaffected, unabashed and daringly non-self referential, his entire oeuvre is completely unique in terms of concept, atmosphere, and content. There is no comparable category in contemporary photography.