Lubomír Typlt
Boy with Snails
Artist
Lubomír Typlt
(1975, Jilemnice), Czech
Original Title
Boy with Snails
Date2007
Mediumgouache on paper
Dimensions70 × 50 cm
Classificationspaintings
Credit LineKunsthalle Praha (Eva and Petr Zeman Collection)
DescriptionLubomír Typlt is one of the most important painters who came into prominence in the first decade of the 21st century in connection with a re-discovered interest in the medium of painting. Typlt’s work is based in a very robust theoretical and art-historical understanding. His early paintings with the motif of dead cats were pervaded by a strong sense expressivity and existential significance. His painting’s tendency towards expressivity however changes towards the rationality of a conceptual approach based in systematic research. He works with a morphology of content and expression which draws heavily on Expressionism, but also subjects it to a critical irony. His work with expressive means is purely intentional. One can see the figures and objects in his paintings as cloned or multiplied models whose thematisation exposes the many forms of evil. He works in cycles in which he experiments with the expressive means of painting, maps the contours of a particular visual motif, analyzes the chosen form and seeks the most intense emotional and colour constellation. He occasionally also develops the direction of a melding geometric work which has to do with creating ready-mades and shows a tendency towards the absurd as well as Dada.
Boy with Snails (2007) exemplifies the figurative motif of adolescent boys, which first entered Typlt’s work in 2006, during his stay in Berlin (2005–2006). Teenage boys offered Typlt a means of portraying rebellious figures which seek to liberate themselves from established rules and are not afraid to show their cruelty. The oversized snails surrounding the boy represent an evolution of his depictions of cats and birds, which his adolescent figures treat as inanimate objects for their games and amusement. Here, however, in portraying a boy looking to the sky with a scared expression, Typlt turns this dynamic on its head, showing nature taking revenge on a boy for the destructive behavior of humankind. Much as other figurative works by Typlt, this motif thematizes questions of human ethics and explores humans as beings which combine virtuous and dark psychological traits.
Lubomír Typlt (*1975, Jilemnice) attended the Václav Hollar Art School in Prague until 1993, studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Brno with Prof. Jiří Načeradský and, in 1997, he graduated from the Academy of Arts, Architecture, and Design in Prague. Due to his interest in German Expressionist painting, which drew him for its painterly and thematic brutalism and rawness, Typlt continued improving his knowledge of painting at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf, where he studied under Prof. Markus Lüpertz, Prof. Gerhard Merz, and Prof. A. R. Penck. After one year spent in Berlin, he returned in 2006 to Prague where his works were included in important exhibitions which, in the first years of the new millennium, focused on new tendencies in painting (Perfect Tense, Prague Castle Riding School, Praha 2003; Resetting: jiné cesty k věcnosti, Prague City Gallery, 2007; Motýlí efekt?, Galerie Rudolfinum 2013). In 2012, he had a large solo exhibition at the Prague City Gallery. Solo exhibitions of Typlt’s work in the Czech Republic have been held at the Prague City Gallery (Ticking Man, 2012), the Václav Špála Gallery (You Cannot Drown in the Same River Twice, 2018), and the Aleš South Bohemian Gallery in Hluboká nad Vltavou (Dancing Pentagon, 2021–2022). His art has also featured in group exhibitions presented in Germany (Blue Is Hot and Red Is Cold: Klasse A. R. Penck 1989–2005, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf and Kulturbahnhof Eller, Düsseldorf, 2019). Typlt has also had solo exhibitions abroad, for instance in Germany (Düster ist die Nacht, Galerie Poll, Berlin, 2013; Somnambul, C&K Galerie, Berlin, 2020), France (Transition, Galerie Oneiro, Paris, 2016), and Belgium (Ticking Man, Prague House in Brussels, 2017). His work is included in numerous institutional and private collections in the Czech Republic and abroad, in countries such as Germany, China, and the Netherlands. He is also affiliated with the music act WWW for which he writes lyrics replete with strong symbolism and absurd irony which resonate with his visual works.
Boy with Snails (2007) exemplifies the figurative motif of adolescent boys, which first entered Typlt’s work in 2006, during his stay in Berlin (2005–2006). Teenage boys offered Typlt a means of portraying rebellious figures which seek to liberate themselves from established rules and are not afraid to show their cruelty. The oversized snails surrounding the boy represent an evolution of his depictions of cats and birds, which his adolescent figures treat as inanimate objects for their games and amusement. Here, however, in portraying a boy looking to the sky with a scared expression, Typlt turns this dynamic on its head, showing nature taking revenge on a boy for the destructive behavior of humankind. Much as other figurative works by Typlt, this motif thematizes questions of human ethics and explores humans as beings which combine virtuous and dark psychological traits.
Lubomír Typlt (*1975, Jilemnice) attended the Václav Hollar Art School in Prague until 1993, studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Brno with Prof. Jiří Načeradský and, in 1997, he graduated from the Academy of Arts, Architecture, and Design in Prague. Due to his interest in German Expressionist painting, which drew him for its painterly and thematic brutalism and rawness, Typlt continued improving his knowledge of painting at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf, where he studied under Prof. Markus Lüpertz, Prof. Gerhard Merz, and Prof. A. R. Penck. After one year spent in Berlin, he returned in 2006 to Prague where his works were included in important exhibitions which, in the first years of the new millennium, focused on new tendencies in painting (Perfect Tense, Prague Castle Riding School, Praha 2003; Resetting: jiné cesty k věcnosti, Prague City Gallery, 2007; Motýlí efekt?, Galerie Rudolfinum 2013). In 2012, he had a large solo exhibition at the Prague City Gallery. Solo exhibitions of Typlt’s work in the Czech Republic have been held at the Prague City Gallery (Ticking Man, 2012), the Václav Špála Gallery (You Cannot Drown in the Same River Twice, 2018), and the Aleš South Bohemian Gallery in Hluboká nad Vltavou (Dancing Pentagon, 2021–2022). His art has also featured in group exhibitions presented in Germany (Blue Is Hot and Red Is Cold: Klasse A. R. Penck 1989–2005, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf and Kulturbahnhof Eller, Düsseldorf, 2019). Typlt has also had solo exhibitions abroad, for instance in Germany (Düster ist die Nacht, Galerie Poll, Berlin, 2013; Somnambul, C&K Galerie, Berlin, 2020), France (Transition, Galerie Oneiro, Paris, 2016), and Belgium (Ticking Man, Prague House in Brussels, 2017). His work is included in numerous institutional and private collections in the Czech Republic and abroad, in countries such as Germany, China, and the Netherlands. He is also affiliated with the music act WWW for which he writes lyrics replete with strong symbolism and absurd irony which resonate with his visual works.
