Thinking through the image: The visual events of Miroslav Petříček

“Images are names for we cannot name,” says the philosopher, teacher, and
translator Miroslav Petříček, who written on visual art for several decades. He has
summarized his observations in, among other things, the book Thinking Through the
Image: A Guide to Contemporary Philosophical Thought for the Non-Intermediate
(2009), which formed the impulse for the 2023 exhibition at Prague City Gallery. The
main idea behind the exhibition and its accompanying publication is was the
presupposition that an encounter with an image is primarily a visual event. The aim is
to emphasize that the languages of words and of images are closely related but that
their material is different: an image or expression cannot be simply translated into
words or concepts. An image does not show; it causes something. It is more than an
illustration, nor is it a mere visual mediator of an idea; it is a specific way of inciting
the mind to think of what has been painted. Thinking through the image is a response
to the encounter with a visual event.
By engaging in a dialogue with works by more than forty artists, the publication’s five
authors (Miroslav Petříček, Jitka Hlaváčková, Milena Bartlová, Jiří Přibáň, and Václav
Janoščík) present their views on the language of visual art, its history, and brand-new
approaches balancing on the line between real and digitally manipulated sensory
input. Along with original photographic documentation by Jiří Thýn, they guide the
reader through a labyrinth of visual events, from abstract sensory percepts via the
search for shapes and concepts all the way to the construction of an idea: from the
mysterious interface between chaos and order or light and darkness to metaimages
of the contemporary world.

The publication features work by the following artists: Karima Al-Mukhtarová, Zbyněk
Baladrán, Mária Bartuszová, Jana Bernartová, Rudolf Fila, Tomáš Hlavina, Václav
Janoščík and Adam Trbušek, Magdalena Jetelová, Magdaléna Kašparová, Michal
Kindernay, Julie Kopová, Zdeněk Košek, Tom Kotik, Eva Koťátková, Václav Krůček,
Kristina Láníková, Jiří Matějů, Maxmilián Aron Mootz, Pavel Mrkus, Jiří Načeradský
and Jaroslav Nešetřil, Jaromír Novotný, Milan Paštéka, Ondřej Přibyl, Jiří Skála,
Kateřina Šedá, Miloš Šejn, Adriena Šimotová, Josef Šmíd, Kateřina Štenclová,
Studio of Joyful Creation (Marie Kúsová, Lukáš Paleček, Vojtěch Proske,
George Radojčić), Dagmar Šubrtová, Eva Vápenková, Vladimíra and Miroslava
Večeřová, Martin Velíšek, Petr Veselý, Lenka Vítková, Martin Zetová