Viktor Pivovarov: Metaphysics and Despair

The catalogue for Viktor Pivovarov’s exhibition Metaphysics and Despair presents the artist’s works from recent years, all of which were shown for the first time at DOX. The somewhat autobiographical series Poets and Muses presents various forms and paths of inspiration and depicts all the possible joy and suffering associated with the creation of a work of art.

The series Metaphysics and Despair, from which the entire exhibition gets its title, contains references to newspaper reports about the horrors of the war in Ukraine. It’s as if the metaphysical images are unrelated to the texts, raising the question of whether it is even possible to write poems or paint pictures against the backdrop of such horrific events. The catalogue also features an older series from 2005 – an album which is a kind of peculiar dialogue with Daniil Kharms.

The publication offers reflections on the artist’s work in the form of an original text by Pivovarov himself titled “On the Artist That Paints My Pictures”, an essay written in letters by curator Máša Pivovarová, and essays by editor Otto M. Urban and Tomáš Glanc.