Gallery Talk with curator Pavel Vančat
Join curator Pavel Vančát for a gallery talk on Lenticular Poetry, an exhibition bringing together the late pioneering Czech photographer Jan Svoboda and his artistic disciple Jaroslav Beneš in their first U.S. presentation. Vančát will explore Svoboda’s influential conceptual photography and Beneš’s poetic abstractions, offering insight into the quiet dialogue between these two generations whose images challenge us to slow down, look closely, and reflect on photography’s enduring power, especially in our digital age.
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION:
The exhibition brings together two important photographers who extend the rich tradition of Czech Modernist photography. Jan Svoboda (1934–1990) is considered one of the most innovative Czech photographers of the 1960s, bridging the fields of photography and fine art in an original mix of symbolism and conceptualism. For Jaroslav Beneš (b. 1946), Jan Svoboda was a major inspiration and one of the first to recognize the qualities of his minimalist light compositions. Their mutual dialogue is thus a meditation on light and minimal forms, but also a commentary about the formats and limits of photography. Both artists, renowned in European photographic circles, are being shown for the first time in the United States.
For more information about the exhibition, please view the following document: Jan Svoboda & Jaroslav Beneš / Lenticular Poetry Leaflet (PDF, 203 KB).
ABOUT THE CURATOR:
Pavel Vančát is a Czech curator and writer specializing in photography and contemporary art. He has curated the exhibition Jan Svoboda: Against the Light at the Photographers’ Gallery in London (2000, with Clare Grafik). Besides dozens of exhibition catalogues and monographs, he has prepared two books on Jan Svoboda in 2011 (FotoTorst) and 2015 (Moravian Gallery, with Jiří Pátek), and is currently working on his catalogue raisonné.
EVENT DETAILS:
Date: Sunday, December 7, 2025, from 2-3 pm
Location: American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center
4400 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20016
RSVP required to: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/gallery-talk-jan-svoboda-jaroslav-benes-lenticular-poetry-tickets-1814448396999
The exhibition is co-organized by: Embassy of the Czech Republic in Washington, DC / Czech Ministry of Culture / American Friends of the Czech Republic / Czech Centre New York / SVIT Gallery, Prague / Jan Svoboda’s Estate / American University Museum