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