Current
Jiří Valoch, Observing the Landscape II, Something like waiting, SW-Fotografie, 24,4 x 24,4 cm, 1974 © Jiří Valoch
PRE-PICTORIAL
JIŘÍ VALOCH
Opening: 12 December 2025, 6.30 pm
Exhibition duration: 13–20 December 2025, 7 January–14 March 2026
Opening hours: Wed–Sat, 10.30–17.00 hrs
Jiří Valoch (*1946, Brno) is a Czech conceptual artist, curator, and theorist who has been a central figure in the Central European avant-garde since the 1960s. In addition to works of visual and concrete poetry, his oeuvre includes conceptual text works, artist's books, and text installations, as well as minimalist happenings and interventions in nature.
The exhibition PRE-PICTORIAL shows a selection of early typograms, photographs, and a text installation that not only appeared radically reduced for the 1960s and 1970s, but also employed a post- and non-semantic and visually poetic language in their own unique way, which not only reflected the international forms of conceptual art, visual poetry, and, in some cases, land art that were developing at the same time, but also had a significant influence on them.
Jiří Valoch studied German and Czech literature and aesthetics at the Faculty of Arts of Masaryk University in Brno (1965–1970). From 1966 onwards, he also worked as an art critic and curator. In the early 1970s, he was involved in organizing unofficial exhibitions throughout Czechoslovakia. From 1972 to 2001, he worked as a curator at the House of Art in Brno.
The exhibition PRE-PICTORIAL shows a selection of early typograms, photographs, and a text installation that not only appeared radically reduced for the 1960s and 1970s, but also employed a post- and non-semantic and visually poetic language in their own unique way, which not only reflected the international forms of conceptual art, visual poetry, and, in some cases, land art that were developing at the same time, but also had a significant influence on them.
Jiří Valoch studied German and Czech literature and aesthetics at the Faculty of Arts of Masaryk University in Brno (1965–1970). From 1966 onwards, he also worked as an art critic and curator. In the early 1970s, he was involved in organizing unofficial exhibitions throughout Czechoslovakia. From 1972 to 2001, he worked as a curator at the House of Art in Brno.