Josef Bolf and Josef Váchal: Future Past Exhibition at Museum Kampa Exploring Dark Visions and the Unconscious

The exhibition 'Future Past' brings together contemporary artist Josef Bolf and early 20th-century artist Josef Váchal, highlighting their shared sensitivity to dark visions and fascination with cosmology and tarot. It explores themes of the unconscious, dreams, memory, and existential anxiety through their distinct artistic expressions.

The exhibition 'Future Past' at Museum Kampa creates a dialogue between two significant figures in Czech art: the contemporary painter and draftsman Josef Bolf (b. 1971) and the versatile artist Josef Váchal (1884–1969). Despite being separated by nearly a century, both artists are united by a profound sensitivity to the dark visions emerging from the human unconscious and a shared fascination with cosmology and tarot archetypes, reflecting an ancient human desire to comprehend hidden forces. Josef Bolf's work features introspective images set in nocturnal, dreamlike landscapes where childhood memories, dreams, and the existential anxieties of modern life intertwine, evoking a quiet yet intense atmosphere. Josef Váchal, through his paintings, drawings, prints, and books, grapples with the spiritual crisis of the modern era, presenting fascinating and critical demonic and apocalyptic visions rooted in his deep engagement with magic and the occult. The exhibition is curated as a journey, moving from Bolf's introspective landscapes to Váchal's mystical imagination, with a central motif of looking 'elsewhere' – into dreams, memory fragments, and internal processes. The culmination is a collaborative fresco of paintings and drawings that references their shared interest in the human soul's journey through astral spheres and the afterlife. This exhibition is conceived not as a retrospective or confrontation, but as an encounter in timelessness, prompting questions about reality, ideas, and dreams.