DOXYGEN: Mezi politikou a fantastickou (nad)realitou s Martinem Charvátem

A fresh cultural emulsion: part exhibition, part workshop, part experiment. And above all, fresh oxygen.

DOXYGEN consists of lectures, workshops, discussions, creative workshops, and everything in between. Contemporary art, contemporary phenomena, contemporary personalities, and the contemporary moment. Evening gatherings at DOX, during which visitors can ponder questions and answers. Their own and those of others.

Just as today, art and media in various forms fed and nourished each other. Martin Charvát will focus on the dynamic relationship between modern art and the emerging mass media of the first half of the 20th century. In a period of rapid technological development, the rise of propaganda, and the transformation of public space, art ceased to be an isolated sphere—it entered newspapers, manifestos, posters, film, and radio. The avant-garde responded to the new media reality in radical ways: sometimes as enthusiastic promoters, sometimes as ironic saboteurs. In an environment of war crisis and media manipulation, Dadaism subverted the language of politics and advertising through absurdity, collage, and mystification.

Martin Charvát will also focus on Poetism as a project of joyful imagination, which instead of negation relies on playfulness, imagery, and enchantment with the modern world. Karel Teige formulated a connection between art, typography, and mass communication, understanding the media not only as a tool of ideology, but also as a space for new poetry of life. Similarly, Vítězslav Nezval's poetic imagination combines the everyday life of the big city with the fantastical (super)reality of dreams. It is precisely in the tension between fascination with technology, political engagement, and escape into imagination that it will be possible to show how the avant-garde oscillates between building a new world and ironically questioning it.

Martin Charvát works at Metropolitan University Prague, where he is the head of the Center for Media Culture Studies. He has published a number of monographs and academic articles. Before the lecture itself, we will take a look at the monumental exhibition HIT BY NEWS. Specific works of art from the 20th and 21st centuries trace the tension and symbiosis between the approach of artists and the reality printed in various media.

For young people aged 16 to 30. The program lasts approximately 2.5 hours and includes a guided tour, lecture, and break.