A Mirror of a Broken World

Petr Pavlik’s exhibition A Mirror of a Broken World presents a subtle retrospective of this contemplative painter, tracing his artistic journey from the 1970s to our controversial present; it is also a visual journey from the initial chaos to a possible—albeit unwanted—apocalypse.

Petr Pavlik is one of the significant painters of the 1970s generation, a member of the Free Group 12/15 Late, But Still. It is clear that for Pavlik, a painting is a spatially constructed field of color, that each painting arises from a series of premises, that it is a record of visual ideas emerging through a process of painting.

It may be difficult to grasp unless we attune ourselves to his sensibilities. This is, after all, the fate of many painters of this era, whose ambition was and is to paint images that cannot be retold. We sense in them an intellectual engagement with visual and other art forms, as well as an immanent faith in the power of the image as such.

In addition to painting, Peter Pavlík also devoted himself to sculpture; for a time—from 1993—he did not paint at all, but wrote and served as an art critic—he did not return to painting and sculpture until 2012. He also worked for many years as a university professor; from 2004 until recently, he taught at the Department of Scenography at DAMU in Prague.

Biography

Born on January 31, 1945, in Prague
Lives and works (to this day) in Prague
Member of the independent group “12:15 Late, but Still”

Education:

1968–1973
Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, studio of František Jiroudek, Arnošt Paderlík’s studio

Teaching Career:

1999–2003
Assistant in Jiří Beránek’s studio, Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague

2004–2024
Department of Scenography, DAMU, Prague (appointed associate professor in 2012)

In 1993, he suspended his artistic work and devoted himself to theoretical, critical, and literary activities; he has published in Ateliér, Architekt, Lidové noviny, Prager Zeitung, Literární noviny, Host, and Mladý svět. In 1998, he published a collection of theoretical and critical essays titled “Art and Life in Bohemia, or the Art of Living in Bohemia” through the Central European Gallery and Publishing House. He has occasionally lectured at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, the Faculty of Fine Arts in Brno, the Faculty of Arts at Charles University, the Glasgow School of Art, the Academy of Fine Arts in Halle, the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava, and elsewhere. In 2012, he resumed his work as a painter and sculptor.

Curator: Martin Dostál

Location: Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum, Čunovo, Slovakia

Date: from 31.03.2026 – 31.05.2026

Opening hours:

Monday – closed
Tuesday – Sunday from 10:00 am – 6:00 pm

Entrance fee:

Adults – 12 €
Family (2 adults and 2 students) – 25 €
Pensioners (over 62 years old) – 6 €
Students – 6 €
Children (under 6 years old) – Free
Members of the Danubiana Club – Free
Disabled persons, persons over 75 years old – Free

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