Elementary human curiosity. Shame, sin, loneliness, intimacy, instant gratification, disgust as well as arousal. GLORY HOLE.

This exhibition aims to show the negatively perceived figure in contemporary art by a generation of young artists. It asks, why aesthetics of the body along with the effort to purify it throughout history has contributed to artists’ deformed view of the human figure. The ideals of ancient statues are long gone. Through centuries of continuously depicting beauty of (not only) the human body, the figure functions in a painting as an object rather than something the viewer should identify with and, through the figure, find his or her point of view.

Four worlds – four ways of looking at the figure. Jan Droščák presents the figure as dirty and unable to purify from its desires; Martina Walterová uses the figure to come to terms with her own past; Peter Hudran portrays people haunted by dark forces hidden inside them; Václav Velčovský, in contrast, offers us the figure preceived as a lonely and abstract being.

We are going to tempt you. Our desire is for you to reflect on the question why contemporary figurative art is running away from positive depiction. Is it as a result of its emptiness? Should we blame romanticism and its internally torn heroes standing on rocks and looking into the horizon? Are we still the same townsfolk who transform their homes into a reception hall full of pretty paintings?