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The Third Landscape presents a new exhibition project by Vladimír Houdek, whose painting has long cultivated a dialogue with the history of modern art. The point of departure for the exhibited body of work is Caspar David Friedrich's The Chasseur in the Forest (1814), which Houdek interprets as an image of human existence within the landscape—a space where the natural order intertwines with uncertainty, memory, and transformation.
The exhibited series approaches painting as an open-ended process in which individual works do not emerge as isolated pieces but as part of a continuous search. Colour, composition, and spatial structure create an environment that does not lead the viewer toward a single interpretation but instead invites them to slow down, focus, and engage with the image in a new way.
The exhibition raises questions about humanity's relationship to landscape, time, and one's own place within a constantly changing world, presenting painting as a space of quiet yet profound experience.
Curator: Filip Kazda
The opening will take place on 11. 9. 2026 from 6p.m. in C.0 HYB4 Galerie.
C.0 HYB4 Galerie is open from Monday to Saturday 10a.m.-8p.m. Entrance to the gallery is through Kavárna Kampus.
Vladimír Houdek belongs to a generation of artists who have long engaged with the legacy of modernism through painting. His work fearlessly confronts classical painterly principles with contemporary visual thinking, seeking new pictorial possibilities. What was initially perceived as an experimental approach has since become one of the defining voices of contemporary Czech painting, inspiring a younger generation of artists.
For Houdek, the act of painting is inseparable from a conscious engagement with art history. Historical works do not constitute a closed body of meanings but rather a living field that remains open to new interpretations. It is precisely this openness that forms the point of departure for his own painterly practice.
The inaugural work of the exhibited series is Caspar David Friedrich's The Chasseur in the Forest (1814). The solitary figure set within a monumental landscape is no longer a symbol of Romantic solitude but an image of human existence. The landscape absorbs the individual into its own order and chaos, reminding us that human presence is always only one layer within a far more expansive whole.
The position of the human figure—like that of the painter—appears unchanged. Yet each encounter with the image opens up a new experience, a new perspective, and a new way of thinking about painting. Colour does not merely construct an environment; it becomes a bearer of emotion, time, and inner states. It accompanies both the figure and the viewer at the moment when the painting itself becomes a site of transformation.
Every significant painting also opens the possibility of another. The individual canvases cannot therefore be understood as self-contained works, but rather as parts of an uninterrupted process in which each new painting continues the one before it. Gradually, the series unfolds into a single image—one that is rooted not only within the gallery space but also in our collective memory.
Media partner: ArtMap, Kudyznudy.cz
