The catalogue for the KAFKAesque exhibition features works by more than thirty internationally renowned artists whose work reflects the legacy of Prague-born Franz Kafka. With its references to existential fears and personal anxieties, Kafka’s work proves to be highly relevant to our times. In addition to their works, the artists represented bring commentary in the form of personal reflection or recollection of their first encounter with Kafka’s work. The book also includes a text by all three curators involved in the exhibition. It is thus not an ordinary exhibition catalogue, but a timeless publication that every admirer of Franz Kafka should have in his or her library.

editors: Otto M.Urban, Michaela Šilpochová, Leoš Válka
272 pages, in Czech and English

ISBN: 978-80-87446-72-0

On sale from May 2024

Andres Serrano is a photographer who has rewritten the history of the American cultural scene. His work has dealt with social issues, sexuality, racial intolerance, and the darker aspects of American history for forty years, and for this he is admired and hated in equal measure. The debate in the U.S. Senate over his most scandalous photograph, Piss Christ, and other controversial works has raised questions about freedom of expression, artistic autonomy, and the boundaries the government should set when funding art projects. This schism became known as the “culture wars” and continued in the United States throughout the 1990s.

Serrano explores several truly charged topics: in his Infamous series, he documents objects and products that have overt or covert racist overtones, from swastikas and depictions of lynchings to caricatures of African Americans on consumer product packaging. He portrays followers of the Ku Klux Klan (Klan), homeless New York subway riders (Nomads) whose faces deliberately resemble Renaissance portraits and details of firearms (Objects of Desire). Another dimension of his work is the emphasis on the aesthetic at a time when beauty in art is often perceived as something undesirable. This unique book of more than 140 photographs, following the exhibition of the same name, presents a view of his work not in closed chronological cycles, but in a dialogue between current photographs and older works. It also offers an essay by the artist, written especially for the occasion, and an expert study and commentary by the exhibition's curator, Otto M. Urban.

editor: Otto M.Urban
published in 2023
232 pages, in Czech and English
1300 CZK

ISBN: 978-80-87446-70-6

The book The Ritual of Cursed Hearts presents the latest work of the painter Jan Vytiska presented at the exhibition of the same name at DOX. As before, the artist draws on a distinctive mix of Wallachian folklore and pop culture references. In his recent paintings, landscapes, mountain ranges, or flowering meadows increasingly appear, contrasting with the scene for which they form the framework. Vytiska never ceases to mix all these references with his own romantic gesture, which is emphasised by the layout of the book, bound in faux black leather. The bilingual Czech-English publication includes essays by curator and editor Otto M. Urban and French theorist Anna Remuzon, who place Vytiska’s work in a historical and theoretical framework.

editor: Otto M.Urban
published in 2023
128 pages, in Czech and English
1200 CZK

The catalogue includes a signed and numbered artist’s print.

ISBN: 978-80-87446-69-0 (DOX)
ISBN: 978-80-908983-0-1 (BLACKPEAK s. r. o.)

The publication presents more than 350 “drawings” by Kristof Kintera - three-dimensional collages that the artist has been creating spontaneously, with ease and detachment for almost two decades, and which were presented at DOX as part of the exhibition How Can I Help You? The drawings are characterised by a uniform format and the artist deliberately creates them with limited resources - found and recycled objects and materials from our everyday existence. Texts are an important part of them, at first glance playful and sarcastic, but often also profound and capable of “cutting to the core”. The bilingual catalogue opens with an essay by Michaela Šilpochová, the curator of the exhibition, who has also prepared an extensive interview with Krištof Kintera, which includes a clear index of the exhibited works.

editor: Michaela Šilpochová
published in 2023
280 pages, in Czech and English
900 CZK

ISBN: 978–80–87446–68–3

The extensive publication The Pain of Others commemorates an extraordinary exhibition project that presented the work of dozens of contemporary artists at the DOX Centre in 2022. The exhibition The Pain of Others asked whether the suffering caused by war can be mediated to those who have not experienced it. The project was created as a reaction to the Russian aggression against nearby Ukraine and featured works by forty other contemporary artists from various countries including Ukraine, alongside classics such as photographer Robert Capa, painters Francisco Goya and Otto Dix. The main theme of the project and the subsequent catalogue, however, was not one particular war or politics or ideology. Through the exhibition, the creators wanted to capture a universal human experience - the ability to approach the pain and suffering of others through art. In addition to a look back at the works in the exhibition, the catalogue presents the reflections of all the curators (Leoš Válka, Michaela Šilpochová, Otto M. Urban, Tomáš Glance and Stefano Carini) on the theme of war and the perception of pain.

editor:  Otto M. Urban
published in 2023
280 pages, in Czech or English
850 CZK

ISBN: 978-80-87446-67-6

The Funny Games catalogue accompanies the solo exhibition of the same name by the Moldovan painter Alexander Tinei, which opened at the DOX Centre in 2022. Alexander Tinei’s journey on the contemporary artistic map of Europe has not been straightforward, short, nor obvious. After all, he did not make his mark in the art world until he was 40 years old. The intention of the exhibition at the DOX Centre was to show the artist's overall artistic development and to illustrate the formal changes in his painting style, composition, and colour. Alexander Tinei finds inspiration in everyday life, childhood, tattoos, found photographs and their mysterious banality. The individual works, both monumental and small formats, are fragments of a grand mosaic of human life, while the painting itself is his way of understanding the world and life around him. Tinei is always personal, his great theme is adolescence, a period of further formation of human individuality, of disappearing childhood and ever more distant adulthood. A crucial and emotionally turbulent and exacerbated time in all respects. Adolescence thus became a guiding principle in the selection of works for the exhibition and the catalogue. The title was ultimately inspired by Michael Haneke's pair of films Funny Games (1997) and Funny Games USA (2007).

editor: Otto M. Urban
published in 2023
185 pages, in Czech and English
960 CZK

ISBN: 978-80-87446-65-2

The catalogue Power(less) brings not only a look back at the works from the exhibition project of the same name, but also longer texts on the themes of power, illness, and powerlessness. The question of where normality ends and “illness” begins, i.e. where the permeability of the work of artists from the category of art brut and representatives of contemporary art occurs, has become essential for the exhibition and the catalogue. The sickness of the powerful and the power of the powerless acquire new dimensions in the publication. The sharpened optics of the artists invited to the project Power(less) and the sometimes almost visionary insight offer an uncompromising view of the present and of history, which, as we know, repeats itself.

editors: Terezie Zemánková, Natálie Drtinová, Otto. M. Urban
published in 2022
275 pages, in Czech or English
1100 CZK

ISBN: 978-80-87446-61-4

As part of the exhibition Remixed & Reimagined, which presents a reflection of Vladimír Skrepl’s work, a publication has been produced that includes, in addition to all the works on display, other works that further expand the context of the artist's influence on the art scene. The individual authors also confess in short texts their relationship to Vladimír Skrepl, not only as an artist but also as a significant personality. The book is accompanied by an interview with the artist conducted by the exhibition curator Otto M. Urban. Graphic design by Daniel Korčák.

editor: Otto M. Urban
published in 2022
174 pages, in Czech and English
800 CZK

ISBN: 978-80-87446-54-6

The extensive publication Vanitas in Contemporary Czech Art reflects the exhibition of the same name, which presented the work of more than sixty contemporary artists. Although modern society has marginalised death and dying and made them taboo, they have remained an important theme in artistic creation. The message of futility represented by still life with flowers or a skull clearly reflects the universality of its legacy and proves to be both timeless and highly relevant. The catalogue includes an anthology of poems, to which several contemporary poets have contributed, and theoretical reflections written by Jiřina Šiklová, Jiří Přibáň, Tomáš Hříbek, and Tereza Matějčková. The graphic design of the book was created by Robert V. Novák.

editor Otto M. Urban; editor of the poetry anthology Marie Iljašenko
published in 2021
335 pages, in Czech and English

ISBN: 978-80-87446-52-2