We have worked since 2019 under the unconductive trash label, which is an anagram of our home towns - Duchcov (Michal Pěchouček) and Traunstein (Rudi Koval). This fatalism-tinged pun metaphorically expresses the internal aspects of the joint working method. Trash accumulates during every creative process and production. Trash is an important and familiar concept from the landscape of cultural values. The retardation property of the unconductive rules out the regulation of trash and the control of the direction of creative energy. The brand is therefore our distilled manifesto - in art, we do not consider it important to finish things. What matters is the beginning of creative activity, not its completed result. The purpose of our collaboration is to remove the layers of the past and discover a new artistic identity.
The starting point of our artistic interaction is the painting - it proved to be a suitable and accessible means in a joint search for a new linguistic and content identity. At the core of our collaboration is the desire to shed the layers of our own past, i.e. to learn to forget our original artistic handwritings. We explore a new painterly handwriting through different materials and methods, including the space and time dimensions of art. In a pair, it is possible to discover new subjects for artistic retelling and new ordinariness. We experiment with artistic means while trying to "moderate" the intensity and interconnectedness of joint everyday activities. We include in art not only common knowledge but also ordinary experiences, situations that can be planned and experienced together. We focus on one-day and long-term challenges. We try to employ this experience of subtle everyday reality in robust wholes such as exhibitions.
Michal Pěchouček is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (1999), winner of the Jindřich Chalupecký Prize (2003),
director and set designer together with Jan Horák at Studio hrdinů Praha (2012-2019). Since 2020, together with Dominik Gajarský,
he has been the head of the studio Fine Art III at the Academy of Arts, Architecture & Design in Prague
Rudi Koval is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (2019), studied in the painting studio of Vladimír Skrepl (2015-2019),
the intermedia studio of Jiří Příhoda (2013-2015) and at Middlesex University London (2016)
solo exhibitions:
2023 Largely Observed, Fait Gallery, Brno, 24. 5. - 29. 7. 2023
2023 Odyssea, Gumárna, Čáslav, 5. 2. - 10. 5. 2023
2022 Still life without Still life without Still, Potential Gallery, Prague, 19. 9. - 30. 10. 2022
2021 If we never saw each other again, it wouldn't matter, Nevan Contempo Gallery, Prague, 4. 9. - 23. 10. 2021
group exhibitions:
2023 Za hory, za doly, tepfestival, Teplice, 30. 6. - 2. 7. 2023
2023 Obrazy v obraze, GAVU, Cheb, 12. 1. - 26. 3. 2023
2022 Výstava ze sbírek Fondu Artefin, Galerie v Sýpce zámku Bechyně, 5. 6. - 30. 9. 2022
2022 To Be Someone Else, Somewhere Else, Sometime Else, ERPET, Prague, 8. 10. - 16. 10. 2022
2022 ARTake away, metro station Můstek. Prague, 1.8. 14. 8. 2022
2021 J&T Banka Art Index Pop-up, Újezd 11, Prague, 2. 9. - 5. 9. 2021
2021 Nová Forma, Gumárna, Čáslav, 23. 5. - 5. 9. 2021
2020 Unplugged, Galerie Rudolfinum, Prague, 13. 6. - 6. 12. 2020
2020 O autorském tichu, Academy of Fine Arts Gallery, Prague, 6. 8. - 28. 8. 2020
2019 Posledních 30 let emancipace, Academy of Fine Arts Gallery, Prague, 1. 10. - 11. 10. 2019
2019 Realty Spořilov – Island of Hope, Prague Quadrennial, Prague, 14. 6. 2019
2019 Geniální přítelkyně, TIC gallery, Brno, 30. 10. - 5. 2. 2020
