Thomas Chapman & Miroslav Tichý: Leisure Surveillance, Donostia-San Sebastian

Ivorypress collaborates with Villa Magdalena in its latest exhibition,  Thomas Chapman & Miroslav Tichý: Leisure Surveillance, by lending a selection of photographs by Tichý.

This two-person show initiates a conversation between the painter, Thomas Chapman (San Di- ego, 1975), based in Berlin and the late photographer Miroslav Tichý (Kyjov, 1926-2011). Chapman’s Lake Paintings and Tichý’s photographs share the voyeuristic gaze of authors whose subjects unknowingly commune with their hosts; the vision of two individuals from the periphery, scrutinizing tendencies of everyday human activities that are seeming-ly innocuous and simultaneously spooky when recorded. Artists are like detectives. Surveillance is comparable to the heightened state of awareness and close attention to detail that characterizes the making of art. The encounters in Tichý’s photographs and Chapman’s Lake Paintings are a close examination of leisure, a critique of life that undermines any kind of pastoral slumber. The presence of these invisible authors accompany their unknown subjects in the fleeting moments they capture.

Open by appointment from June 22 to August 12, 2022.