Josef Žáček

Who is Josef Žáček?

Josef Žáček is a Czech painter. He graduated from Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in 1983.

Josef Žáček's own visual language was based on geometric signs and later figural symbols through which he came to address universal issues of cultural identity and memory as well as wholly concrete phenomena of the contemporary world. In his work is frequently used principle of a central motif. The same motif appears several times alongside itself, either in paintings arranged next to each other or within the composition of a single picture. His monumental canvases are usually monochrome compositions.

In 1989 he had first major exhibition at the Youth Gallery in Prague, which featured canvases in abstraction shapes on the theme of The Gospel of St Matthew. In 1994 Žáček exhibited a series of paintings at the Behémot Gallery in Prague that were inspired by events that had occurred in 1993 in Bad Kleinen. The series of evocative portraits of wanted members of the Red Army Faction entitled Searching in Lost Space is not a celebration of violent solutions, rather it highlights how society has evolved in an unnatural direction. The source of the Žáček's portrets was a poster of wanted R. A. F. activists announcing the reward for their capture.