Fotograf Magazine

The first joint exhibition “1+1” of Jiří Thýn (1977), a student of photography at the Academy of Applied Arts in the studio of the recently deceased Pavel Štecha, and Adéla Svobodová (1978), a student in the studio of Prof. Michal Bielický at the Academy of Visual Arts, is the result of a sensitive self-reflection on cohabitation in a somewhat cramped bedsit in the Prague neighbourhood of Žižkov. The sharing of territory (it is actually only one room and a side kitchen) as a metaphor for a relationship becomes its defining space, but also a place of defining the boundaries of one’s own personality, which often become blurred in a close relationship to another person. The sophisticated visual language of both artists, working on the level of the richly symbolic, is drawn from daily life and often leaves the viewer at a loss. A common trait in their work is a sensitive capturing of the ordinary, a willingness to be carried away by the absurdity of the mundane inspirations and subtle deviations from the norm which undermine the very essence of the routine.