Image: House of Photography, Milan
Galerie hlavního města Prahy will devote GHMP Zvon to 'Bezhlavý jezdec', an exhibition opening on 24 June and running through 11 October 2026 that revisits one of the Czech art scene’s best-known artist groups of the 1990s. The show is presented as a comprehensive look at the collective formed by Josef Bolf, Ján Mančuška, Jan Šerých and Tomáš Vaněk, and it places their work against the cultural conditions of the late 1990s, when dial-up internet was a luxury and music and film still circulated through homemade mixes and cassette sharing.
According to GHMP, the exhibition is set in the atmosphere of the “last large pre-internet generation” and follows artists who came of age as the Czech art scene was learning how to function in a free society. The gallery’s presentation describes the group’s origins at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague and situates it among other newly formed collectives of the period, including Pondělí, Koza Nostra, Jednotka, Luxsus and Podebal. The title 'Bezhlavý jezdec' is explained by the group as a rejection of leadership and programmatic unity, with daily decisions arriving through negotiation and artistic intuition rather than a single guiding figure.
The exhibition text emphasises that the group’s members shared interests that set them apart from the streamlined language of advertising and mainstream pop culture then dominant in public life. Neo-avant-garde art, classical literature, science fiction and DIY culture are named as key points of reference, and the show is framed around concerns that shaped the era: television as a window onto the West, psychedelia, comics, experiments with altered states of consciousness and the routines of post-revolutionary Czech households. Rather than directly commenting on the contradictions of the 1990s, the exhibition says, 'Bezhlavý jezdec' approached them through questions of perception and the changing organisation of everyday life.
GHMP says the exhibition will also function as a reflection on what has been gained and lost over the past three decades. Its curatorial team is Sandra Baborovská and Vít Havránek. Havránek is also credited with the exhibition concept and architecture, with Roman Brychta collaborating on the architectural solution and Lukáš Kijonka responsible for the graphic design. The gallery’s own online presentation includes installation views by Jan Kolský, indicating a substantial display developed for the stone-fronted venue at Staroměstské náměstí.
A key companion to the show is a GHMP publication produced with the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. The catalog uses archival materials, photographs, interviews and documentation to map the group’s activity from 1996 to 2004, and GHMP describes it as one of the most comprehensive views of this chapter in Czech contemporary art. The exhibition page also notes a related video and a series of educational and public programmes.
Those accompanying activities include thematic school tours throughout the run of the exhibition, along with guided tours on 8 August, 8 September and 6 October 2026. A Saturday workshop titled 'D.I.Y.: Kutilové 90. let' is scheduled for 29 August, while further workshops for adults and seniors are listed for 28 and 30 August and 10 October under themes such as 'Tváře a stopy', 'Mezi textem a obrazem' and 'Díla jako ze žurnálu'. GHMP Zvon, in Prague’s Old Town, is open during exhibitions from Tuesday to Sunday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
