Jan Ambrůz belongs to a generation of artists who entered the art scene in the early 1980s. He made a name for himself as a creator of monumental site-specific installations, a non-figurative sculptor, a land artist, and, last but not least, an exceptional draftsman.

In the words of Jiří Valoch: "Unlike most of his contemporaries, he employs the language of geometry, but not the kind characteristic of Constructivism and the Constructivist tendencies of the 1960s; his starting point is the geometry of minimal art, specifically its most rigorous form, which we might define by the names of Carl Andre, Sol LeWitt, or Donald Judd."

In addition to his three-dimensional works, he has also been creating drawings continuously since the late 1980s. These either tie in with his objects and sculptures in various ways or are conceptual in nature, intellectually referencing the drawings of the 1970s and 1980s; in the Czech context, these include, for example, the works of Dalibor Chatrný—two-handed drawings, drawings with an obstacle—or Magdalena Jetelová—drawings made with smoke bombs or fire.

For Jan Ambrůz as well, the creative process itself is of great importance in the realization of his work. Minimalist actions—such as repetitive impressions of ordinary garden objects, the multiplication of grids or lines using a pre-prepared grid and a taut string, and even the choice of color palette itself—give rise to drawings whose monumentality rivals that of large-scale spatial installations, because the essence of both is the same. 

Jan Ambrůz’s work is about minimalist gestures that give rise to monumental works of various formats. And just as the title simply points to the basic theme, the exhibition itself will attempt to present and explore Jan Ambrůž’s drawings from recent years in a very authentic way, rooted in a strong personal experience and a constant search.