The exhibition space Behind the Wall, which is part of the permanent exhibition 20th-Century Czech Art and Its Labels, is dedicated to artists who in 1948–1989 worked outside official structures of cultural policy – either on the underground scene or in the grey area overlooked by official institutions. They often created experimental works, action art, happenings or other intangible or temporary installations. Seen from today’s perspective, these works – created and shown “behind the walls” of studios, homes or weekend cottages – are some of the conceptually richest artistic documents of that era.
The work of Rudolf Němec (1936–2015) transcends the boundaries between media and stylistic labels. Besides being one of the most distinctive painters of the New Figuration, Němec also participated in various happenings and performances, made short films and wrote literature and poetry. He explored all of these activities in close connection with the other members of the Crusaders’ School of Pure Humour Without Jokes, which functioned as an important platform for underground art in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The beginnings of Němec’s painting practice were influenced by his encounter with the work of Yves Klein and Antonio Recalcati at the Vienna exhibition Pop etc. (1964, Museum des XX. Jahrhunderts). He subsequently introduced onto the Czech scene art actions in which the work of art was made using an imprint of the human body. Here, originally free performative practice took on a darker form influenced by the totalitarian culture of fear and the second face hidden behind closed doors. Němec initially imprinted himself and other objects directly onto a layer of enamel. This direct imprint of the body felt naturalistic, like an evocation of pulsating life. From the physical imprint of a specific person, he relatively quickly moved towards decalcomania impressions of plastic figurines in which he used wires to model the nodal points and energy pathways inside the body. He even exhibited these Suits for a Medium as independent objects in their own right.
In parallel with his imprints and impressions, Němec also began to work with the spray paint and stencils, for which he cut shadow outlines out of cardboard. He was even more fascinated by the objects with which we surround ourselves at home – grids and latticework patterns whose rhythm both relaxes and stimulates us. His canvases thus contained shadows of bathroom mats, sinks and washbasins, industrial grilles, doormats, etc.
In the 1970s, Němec and his friends organized several actions in the landscape: Penetration, Dwelling, Cocooning etc. At the centre of these actions was man with all his potential and limitations. In order to express vulnerability and fragility, Němec used plastic film to separate the actors from their surroundings. Thus detached from the order of nature by this artificial cocoon, they were made untouchable and found themselves outside the order of time.
