The potential of slapstick comedy has always consisted of the carefree innocence possessed by its actors in revealing the cruel irony of human life. For the avant-garde of the 1920s, such an idol of hope and liberation was the famous hobo Charlie. Although almost a century has gone by since that time, it is precisely the vision of a lightened and playful world, which laughs at fate regardless of all the cruelty and injustice (depicted by Karel Teige in his book) that is perhaps even today one of the paths to positive liberation and re-appropriation of our future. We can feel a similar state of weightlessness from the projects of Jiří Pitrmuc… The artist recycles the topic of silent films stuck in the roots of modern culture, to divest this visual language full of joy and carefreeness, linked with a number of typical artefacts, of the tragedy of human presence, and he introduces it in his paintings and installations as a fresh game room of archetypes of the avant-garde. The actors have vanished, but there remains a visual game room full of unexpected situations, intersections and slapsticks, in which the lead role goes to the requisites associating the poetic world of silent films. The artist here is that magician with a high hat, not pulling doves or rabbits out of it, but his paintings.
Viktor Čech, 2020

Jiří Pitrmuc (b. 1993) graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in 2020. His work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions at stone projects (2022), GMU, Hradec Králové (2022), Center for Contemporary Arts Prague (2020). Lives and works in Prague.