Preview: Thursday 1 October 2026, 5 pm
The Lidice Art Collection, in collaboration with the Faculty of Art and Design, Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem (FUD UJEP), presents an exhibition titled 'Bez obrazu událostí'
František Mertl, Miloš Zet, Anonymous (Italy), Václav Podestát curated by Anna Gotvaldová
The exhibition in the ArtLab space offers a contemplative setting for reflection on human vulnerability. It examines what follows the loss of certainty, safety, and home after the Lidice tragedy. The exhibition does not depict specific historical events. The human figure appears in fragments, in a painting by Franta and in sculptures by Miloš Zet and an anonymous Italian artist, all from the Lidice Art Collection. The fragments carry quiet traces of helplessness, alienation and inner tension. These feelings pass between generations, whatever the time or place we live in. Each work invites visitors to consider their own relationship to memory, identity, place and loss.
At the centre of the exhibition is Ekoton, a site-specific intervention by Václav Podestát conceived for ArtLab. It brings a living trace of the place into the gallery. The artist lifted a self-seeded plant from the land of Lidice together with its roots and part of its native soil. Only a crack remains where it grew. Yellow highlighting stickers cover the plant, forming an artificial lichen. The lichen stands for the layer that carries memory and cultural belonging. This marking makes something unremarkable visible. The gesture also points to the human need to label things and give them meaning. Ekoton raises questions of uprooting, the limits of endurance, and belonging to a family line or a particular landscape. In place of an image of events, visitors face a living fragment of a place whose soil still holds its historical experience.
The exhibition is the first of two that the Lidice Art Collection and the Faculty of Art and Design, Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem (FUD UJEP), are developing together in 2026. It continues the educational and curatorial dialogue that began in 2024 with our joint exhibition 'Soulad'. Every two years, we invite students from the youngest generation of curators in this prestigious programme at UJEP to work with our solidarity collection and to reflect on what they learn through exhibition practice. Last year we held an open call for students and selected two projects. The first of them is 'Bez obrazu událostí', curated by Anna Gotvaldová.
We thank MgA. Adéla Machová, Ph.D., Mgr. Eva Imr Mráziková, PhD, FUD UJEP team, and the students of the Curatorial Studies programme at FUD UJEP for their collaboration and work with the collection. And to Ludmila Půrová for the visual identity of the exhibition.
EXHIBITION PARTNERS
The exhibition is organised in collaboration with the Department of Art History and Theory, Faculty of Art and Design, Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem (FUD UJEP). ArtMap and Artalk support the exhibition.
