Texts | Hynek Alt

The project Substance P presents a joint exhibition by Hynek Alt and Tomáš Roubal. It does not aim at a closed thematic whole. It offers a look into the current state of their artistic thinking and the formal development of different, though related, themes …

Pavel Kubesa. 2026. “Substance P.” Exhibition text, Hynek Alt & Tomáš Roubal: Substance P, Galerie Stanice 6, Prague, 28 May to 20 June 2026.

In his work, Hynek Alt often unfolds the medium of photography in order to find depth within it, a diagonal passage beyond the image itself.

Václav Janoščík. 2026. “Infrastruktury: dát prostor touze druhých.” In the exhibition newspaper, 20 pages, A3, 350 copies, free to take. Faculty of Art and Design, UJEP Ústí nad Labem, 2026.

In 1844 William Henry Fox Talbot included in his book The Pencil of Nature a photograph titled "A Scene in a Library." The picture shows several shelves with rows of books, a simple still life that works almost as a catalogue of things. His commentary, …

Tomáš Dvořák. 2026. “Scéna v ateliéru.” Exhibition text, Hynek Alt: Fantom, Ateliér Josefa Sudka, Prague, 11 September – 25 October 2026.

BENEATH THE SURFACE brings together the work of Hynek Alt and Adam Hudec—two distinctive artistic voices whose practices unfold at the intersection of multiple media and disciplines. Although they belong to different generations and come from different …

Zuzana Pastirčák Duchová. 2026. “Pod povrchom / Beneath the Surface.” Exhibition text, PHOINIX Gallery, Štetinova 1, Bratislava, SK.

Meme! He watches the cat playing on the untidy kitchen counter. It is small and black, with soft fur, a crooked tail and clumsy legs. It bounces and runs energetically between pots, a bag of coffee, glasses, mugs and spices, knocking some things over. At one …

Hynek Alt. 2026. “Untitled (Cat, Apparatus and Filter).” Contribution to Václav Kopecký, Light Blue Filter: Příručka principu média fotografie. Praha: UMPRUM, 2026. ISBN 978-80-88622-25-3.

I work with photography, and against it. My practice begins with the photographic gesture but rarely ends with an image. What interests me is the apparatus: the scaffolding of seeing, the systems that make an image possible, the mechanisms of looking, …

Hynek Alt. 2026. “Artist Statement.” Artist statement, April 2026.

The exhibition Estranged Tools perceives technology not only as instruments of progress but also as historical cultural phenomena intertwined with myths, speculative stories, and visions of possible futures. The individual works explore the deep connections …

Natálie Kubíková, Mia Milgrom. 2025. “Estranged Tools.” Exhibition text, Estranged Tools, Garage Gallery, Prague, 2025.

The exhibition entitled Geisterknochen and the accompanying fanzine Paleohauntology offer an insight into the creative and theoretical practice of the past ten years of the collective Technologie und das Unheimliche (T+U). Combining archaeology, geology, …

Márió Z. Nemes. 2024. “Geisterknochen.” Exhibition text, Technologie und das Unheimliche (T+U): Geisterknochen, Trafó Gallery, Budapest, 7 September – 27 October 2024.

Hello, stranger Stranger when we meet, stranger danger, strangers in the night Perfect stranger, strangers on a train, strangers in this town, the stranger L’étranger, A Streetcar Named Desire, Stranger than Paradise, Stranger Things The Second Sex, Strangers …

Jen Kratochvil. 2024. “Hello, Stranger.” Exhibition text, Hello, Stranger!, Galerie Sam83, Česká Bříza, 6 October 2024 – 15 January 2025.

i wrote jen this summer from paris, while overlooking the seine. i have no idea where jen is. somewhere in the us, i guess. but she (she?) could be anywhere. jen and i are google-doppelgängers. jen has my email. she (let’s settle with she for simplicity’s …

Jen Kratochvil. 2024. “dilithium, chapter 2: doppelgängers.” Exhibition text, dilithium, chapter 2: doppelgängers, Exile Gallery, Vienna, 2024.

Stagh-ná – stack → to sweat, dig, grab, read, speak and repeat ⌧ to find and/or open up (on(/))to something. Concealed under layers and layers and stacks – lays a stratum of (mis)usages. Locations, meanings, signs, and initial ideas blurr and shift back and …

Toxi, Zürich. 2023. “stagh-ná-stack.” Exhibition text, stagh-ná – stack, Toxi, Zimmerlistrasse 4, Zürich.

Welcome to the app. Burn Register. The application is used to report a planned burn to the local fire department. Reporting a burn does not lead to its approval; it is merely reported to the Operations and Information Center of the Fire Rescue Service. The …

Vojtěch Märc. 2023. “Small Talks with Fires.” Exhibition text, Small Talks with Fires, Berlínskej model, Prague, 14 to 21 June 2023.

Hynek Alt’s newly developed works Untitled (Howl) and Untitled (Jedová Chýše/ Gifthütte, 1262-1923) follow in the footsteps of Untitled (Spejbl, ketamine), 2020 in an exploration of the societal mechanisms of coping through the utilization of mind-altering …

Jen Kratochvil. 2023. “Floor Is Lava.” In the exhibition's online booklet, 6 pages, English. Editing and translation Denisa Tomková, graphic design Lukáš Kollár.

Floor is Lava, aninternational group exhibition borrows its title from an eponymous children's game common in the Western context, in our geopolitical environment familiarized by computer games and reality TV adaptations. Basically, since the floor is lava, …

Denis Kozerawski and Jen Kratochvil. 2023. “Floor Is Lava.” Exhibition text, Floor Is Lava (Lávatalaj), Trafó Gallery, Budapest, 2 September – 22 October 2023, opening 1 September.

Ever since photography was gradually incorporated into the practice and teaching of art, it has remained a new medium, but photography is also a format that is closely associated with the past, with issues concerning the media representation of reality and …

Václav Janoščík. 2022. “Fyzické tělo společnosti / The Physical Body of Society.” In Jitka Hlaváčková (ed.), Věštění z noční oblohy částečně zakryté mraky: Role fotografie v postmediální době / Divination from a Night Sky Partly Covered by Clouds: The Role of Photography in the Post-Media Age. Praha: Galerie hlavního města Prahy, 2022. ISBN 978-80-7010-181-0.

This theoretical work follows on from artistic research carried out in the form of several art projects as part of the doctoral studies at UMPRUM in Prague. Like many works before it, it deals with the relationship between photographic reproduction and …

Hynek Alt. 2022. “Stone, Bronze and Air: What Is the Role of Photographs Depicting Sculptures in Motion?” Doctoral thesis, Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague (UMPRUM), 2022. Supervisor Dominik Lang.

For a long time exhibitions of photographs were almost all the same. Few photographers were able to think about how to present their work, to take into account the different conditions of each exhibition space, and to support the overall effect of their work …

Ondřej Horák and Lucie Šťastná. 2021. “Hynek Alt, Aleksandra Vajd: Za zrcadlem.” In Průvodce neklidným územím III: Příběhy česko-slovenské fotografie, 246–49. Praha: Labyrint, 2021.

66 I think that the last line of ketamine was one too many. Yet I vaguely recall - scraping the remnants of my operating power - that it was actually the only one today, or during this week, how could I be even able to remember, anyway. ———————— Footnote 1: …

Jen Kratochvil. 2021. “Infrastructures, Beach & a Porcelain Skin.” In Vlna 87 (August 2021): 66. On Untitled (Infrastructures, Beach & a Porcelain Skin), Phoinix Gallery, Bratislava, 2021.

Hynek Alt talks with Jen Kratochvil about the exhibition Untitled (Infrastructures, Beach & a Porcelain Skin) at Phoinix Gallery, collective memory, the remediation of reality through popular culture, the death of the ego and the speculative nature of …

Hynek Alt. 2021. “Porcelánové infrastruktury.” Interview with Jen Kratochvil. In Vlna 87 (August 2021): 62–65. On Untitled (Infrastructures, Beach & a Porcelain Skin), Phoinix Gallery, Bratislava, 2021.

Hynek Alt How Soon Is Now Kurátor / Curated by: Pavel Kubesa Text / Text by: Borbála Szalai Vernisáž: 7. 10. 2020 Výstava potrvá do 7. 11. 2020

Borbála Szalai. 2020. “How Soon Is Now.” Exhibition text, Hynek Alt: How Soon Is Now, NoD Gallery, Prague.

The conversion of Western representative democracies into a completely new despotism has taken, because of the coronavirus, the legal form of “force majeure” (a force majeure is a well-known clause used in contracts to free the parties from liability). So the …

Gianfranco Sanguinetti. 2020. “Western Despotism / Západní despotismus.” In ALT, Hynek. Untitled (Infrastructures & The Beach). Ed. Jen Kratochvil. Praha: Nakladatelství AMU, with the support of Drdova Gallery, 2020. 232 pp. ISBN 978-80-7331-545-0.

The ancient philosopher Anaxagoras, a friend of Pericles, said that “visible things are the part that is seen of the things that are not seen”. Reality resembles an iceberg, whose visible part is no more than a tenth of what remains hidden underwater. This …

Gianfranco Sanguinetti. 2020. “The Topography of the Invisible and a Journey Through Time / Topografie neviditelného a cesta v čase.” In ALT, Hynek. Untitled (Infrastructures & The Beach). Ed. Jen Kratochvil. Praha: Nakladatelství AMU, with the support of Drdova Gallery, 2020. 232 pp. ISBN 978-80-7331-545-0.

With the bag of tricks, methods, perceptions, and concepts of years of cultural theory, art practices, architecture, and engineering, we already know quite well how to approach the city. The Situationists famously contributed their part by drifting and …

Jussi Parikka. 2020. “The Holey City / Děravé město.” In ALT, Hynek. Untitled (Infrastructures & The Beach). Ed. Jen Kratochvil. Praha: Nakladatelství AMU, with the support of Drdova Gallery, 2020. 232 pp. ISBN 978-80-7331-545-0.

Soil is undervalued because it is often mistaken for dirt, its zombie carcass. Dirt seems to be everywhere. Dirt is used to express the bottom of the value scale:

Àngels Miralda. 2020. “From the Underground / Z podzemí.” In ALT, Hynek. Untitled (Infrastructures & The Beach). Ed. Jen Kratochvil. Praha: Nakladatelství AMU, with the support of Drdova Gallery, 2020. 232 pp. ISBN 978-80-7331-545-0.

Image A: Julius Caesar looks down from his villa upon Rome, criss-crossed by an urban network of aqueducts connected to the central network of the Cloaca Maxima.

Jen Kratochvil. 2020. “Through me you pass into the city of woe… / Mnou vchází se do města věčné strasti…” In ALT, Hynek. Untitled (Infrastructures & The Beach). Ed. Jen Kratochvil. Praha: Nakladatelství AMU, with the support of Drdova Gallery, 2020. 232 pp. ISBN 978-80-7331-545-0.

Naděžda Hávová: Does there have to be a story behind every photograph? And does a photographer look at the world with different eyes than someone who doesn't press the shutter? We will ask about that today too. Naděžda Hávová greets you from the studio of …

Naděžda Hávová. 2020. “Hovory: Hynek Alt.” Radio interview, Hovory, Český rozhlas Plus, 13 January 2020.

The story of our past is not merely given. It is a complex construction of carefully interwoven narratives, forging a coherent memory and corresponding national behavior. People and parties in power have the prerogative of defining what we consider to be our …

Jen Kratochvil. 2019. “Neptune.” Exhibition text, Adéla Babanová: Neptune, with guests Hynek Alt, Christian Kosmas Mayer and Daniel Pitín, Zahorian & Van Espen, Bratislava, 31 January – 25 April 2019.

Earlier this month, Iceland held a funeral for the first glacier lost to global warming; a new iPhone model is expected to be announced in upcoming week, now including new “Siri intelligence” features; but also Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian, sisters and two …

Václav Janoščík. 2019. “Objects in Love with Humans.” Exhibition text, Objects in Love with Humans / Objekty zamilované do lidí, Drdova Gallery, Prague, 30 August – 1 September 2019.

Employing various media, but with the camera as his preferred tool, Hynek Alt (b. 1976, Czech Republic) creates conceptual, open-ended displays inspired by everyday observations. Here, Alt sets out his Deep Purple project, the merits of collaboration, and the …

“Hynek Alt: Interview.” 2018. In Unseen Magazine 5 (2018): 119. Presented by Drdova Gallery.

Four works with a different content and theme are placed around a certain middle formed by their encounter, constituting a materialized deconstruction of photographic perception. All of the works accentuate a tension between the surface and the inside; a …

Michal Novotný. 2017. “Deep Purple.” Exhibition text, Hynek Alt: Deep Purple, Drdova Gallery, Prague, 18 March to 6 May 2017.

Artist duo Aleksandra Vajd (1971, Maribor, Slovenia) and Hynek Alt (1976, Kutná Hora, Czech Republic) have worked together since 2001 and jointly explore the photographic medium while challenging its boundaries. They work with images as objects, use the room …

“Aleksandra Vajd & Hynek Alt.” 2017. In If Seeing Is Believing, 84–89. Exhibition catalogue, Fullersta Gård, Huddinge, Sweden, 2017.

00:21–00:42 The... the individual elements are linked by the motif of a kind of moment. I actually feel that... that all those... all the individual pieces have a lot of, like, photographic properties, even though they are not necessarily... not photographs.

Hynek Alt. 2017. “Deep Purple.” Video interview by Milan Mazúr, Artyčok.tv, 24 April 2017. On Hynek Alt: Deep Purple, Drdova Gallery, Prague, 2017.

(I have observed the art of Aleksandra Vajd and Hynek Alt for 15 years not only as a professional and critic but also a good friend and sometimes a curator of their exhibitions. Therefore, it is more complicated to find the right words, approach and diction …

Pavel Vančát. 2014. “AV/HA.” In VAJD, Aleksandra and ALT, Hynek. My Left Hand. Praha: UMPRUM and Drdova Gallery, 2014. 128 pp. ISBN 978-80-86863-83-2.

Once upon a time, the invention of photography sparked great hopes: We would obtain a more objective record of reality by delegating the task of taking its imprint to a technical process. Some languages even call the camera's system of lenses an "objective." …

Noemi Smolik. 2014. “Hynek Alt, Drdova Gallery.” Review of Hynek Alt: Systems Decomposition, Drdova Gallery, Prague. Translated from German by Gerrit Jackson. In Artforum, November 2014.

If I should start thinking about the umbrella metaphor of Hynek Alt and Aleksandra Vajd photographs, I am convinced that it could be the politics of an image. Rationally analytic and imaginative approaches, emphasis on sensory dimension of the photograph and …

Jiří Ptáček. 2014. “2006 → Politics of an image / Politika obrazu / Politika podobe.” In VAJD, Aleksandra and ALT, Hynek. My Left Hand. Praha: UMPRUM and Drdova Gallery, 2014. 128 pp. ISBN 978-80-86863-83-2.

The Czech Hynek Alt and the Slovenian Aleksandra Vajd demonstrate the treachery and fragility of perceiving the photographic image. Their games with optical illusions, and their sometimes almost trivial manipulations of the photographic image, are part of …

Jiří Ptáček. 2014. “Díry v dlaních Hynka Alta a Aleksandry Vajd.” Czech manuscript. Published in German as “Die Löcher in den Händen von Hynek Alt und Aleksandra Vajd,” EIKON 84–85 (2014): 28–38.

Running through foamy darkness, I can hardly make out the delicacies of the surrounding substances and shapes. The points of reference have gradually vanished with the rising pulse of my gasping breath. I am looking for something, yet the contours of what I …

Jen Kratochvil. 2014. “Pierre Huyghe.” Exhibition text, Pierre Huyghe, Lucie Drdova Gallery, Prague, 23 March – 10 May 2014.

Jen: Hynek, let’s start with a positional shoot-out. I recently watched Adam Curtis’ documentary All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace, and the development of cybernetics and computer systems during the Cold War period were being discussed there as the …

Jen Kratochvil. 2014. “Interview with Hynek / Rozhovor s Hynkem / Intervju s Hynkem.” In VAJD, Aleksandra and ALT, Hynek. My Left Hand. Praha: UMPRUM and Drdova Gallery, 2014. 128 pp. ISBN 978-80-86863-83-2.

Jen: So, let me start with a bit of a general question, the same one I asked Hynek during our interview. Last week, I saw Adam Curtis’ documentary called All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace. Among other things, the early development of cybernetics, …

Jen Kratochvil. 2014. “Interview with Aleksandra / Rozhovor s Aleksandrou / Intervju s Aleksandro.” In VAJD, Aleksandra and ALT, Hynek. My Left Hand. Praha: UMPRUM and Drdova Gallery, 2014. 128 pp. ISBN 978-80-86863-83-2.

00:16–00:34 Hana Buddeus: This show took part of Fotograf Festival. In this year the topic of the festival is Seeing is Believing. We kind of were thinking about which show could be really like meant for this festival. And so I realized that in this AMU …

Hana Buddeus. 2014. “Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt.” Video statement, Artyčok.tv, 2014. On Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt, AMU Gallery, Prague, 9 October – 9 November 2014.

Aleksandra: I think that we are still waiting for how this book will come out. The structure is transparent and therefore, we cannot think of anything else. Of course we could decide to use other cut-outs of photographs or change their colors but that is …

Aleksandra Vajd and Hynek Alt. 2014. “My Left Hand.” In VAJD, Aleksandra and ALT, Hynek. My Left Hand. Praha: UMPRUM and Drdova Gallery, 2014. 128 pp. ISBN 978-80-86863-83-2.

Transforming or rearticulating the media of art is a natural development of artistic expression, which always directly refers to the spirit of the times: specific geo-political, social and economic factors. This is directly connected to how different …

Tevž Logar. 2013. “When Will I See You Again.” Exhibition text, Aleksandra Vajd, Hynek Alt: When Will I See You Again, Škuc Gallery, Ljubljana, 13 December 2012 – 13 January 2013.

00:06–00:16 [Setup, off-camera audio in Czech] "To se vším... Že ta krása..." "Ale ještě bych se byl... Jestli můžu, tak bych zaostřil tady na tohleto a na tohleto. A na mě teda zpředu." "Jo."

Pavel Vančát. 2013. “Photography, Reconstructed.” Video statement, Artyčok.tv, 2013. On PragueBiennalePhoto 3: Photography, Reconstructed, Freight Railway Station, Prague, 6 July – 15 September 2013.

This exhibition by Hynek Alt and Aleksandra Vajd, long-standing collaborators and a married couple, is the first solo presentation of their conceptually based photographic work in Brno. This fact is remarkable in itself, above all given the position they have …

Jiří Ptáček. 2012. “Not Ready!” Exhibition text, Aleksandra Vajd, Hynek Alt: Not Ready!, Galerie U Dobrého pastýře (Galerie TIC), Brno, 31 October – 19 December 2012.

If one of them were relieved of his shackles and forced to suddenly stand up, turn his neck and go look up into the light, he could do so only in pain and due to the blinding glare he would not be able to look at objects, whose shadows he earlier saw. What …

Edith Jeřábková. 2012. “The Place from Where You Think.” Exhibition text, Aleksandra Vajd, Hynek Alt: The Place from Where You Think, Fotograf Gallery, Prague, 2012.

With their project You Can't Change the Weather, Aleksandra Vajd and Hynek Alt transformed the space of the etc. gallery into a temporary testing room.

Markéta Vinglerová. 2011. “You Can't Change the Weather.” In Aleksandra Vajd and Hynek Alt, You Can't Change the Weather. Artist's book, etc. gallery, Prague, 2011.

The project entitled Fundaments & Sediments / Toys’ Mutiny, 2011 encompasses an assortment of paintings, drawings, objects, sculptures, installations and projections by twenty-six artists of different generations. The selection of exhibits involved the use of …

Petr Vaňous. 2011. “Fundaments & Sediments.” Exhibition text, Fundaments & Sediments / Toys’ Mutiny, 2011, City Gallery Prague, 2 February to 1 May 2011.

Hynek Alt (1976) studied photography at FAMU in Prague and completed an MFA at the State University of New York. Since 2005 he has formed an artist duo with his wife Aleksandra Vajd. Their joint projects deal with photography as a specific mode of perception, …

Pavel Vančát. 2011. “How the Other Half Lives.” Exhibition text, Hynek Alt: How the Other Half Lives, Galerie Jelení, Prague, 31 May to 17 June 2011.

Our work is based on gathering the visual elements of our immediate surroundings, stripping them from the original meaning and seek connections, analogies and shifts between images in new sequences built as autonomous parts of reality, statements, short …

Aleksandra Vajd and Hynek Alt. 2011. “Media Specific.” In Aleksandra Vajd and Hynek Alt, Works 2001–2011. Portfolio, October 2011.

For long Aleksandra Vajd and Hynek Alt remain remarkably faithful to one medium without an effort to create a distinctive brand, identifiable style which they would continuously expand show after show (while both publicly presented carefully and in reasonable …

Michal Pěchouček. 2010. “Díra v dlani / A Hole in the Palm.” Exhibition text, Aleksandra Vajd, Hynek Alt: Díra v dlani, Galerie 35m2, Prague, 11 March to 11 April 2010.

“Hole in the palm” is an installation of several photographs, all of which combines the essence of optical delusion and photographic magic. The images have the character of the evidence or the instructions that are clearly legible and coded. They are a bit …

“Hole in the Palm.” 2010. Exhibition text, Aleksandra Vajd, Hynek Alt: Díra v dlani / Hole in the Palm, Galerie 35m2, Prague, 2010.

Today we have lost the habit (at least in galleries and theoretical essays) to perceive the technical image as a transparent window into the world or its undistorted mirror. Criticism of the mimetic principle is yet much older, it begins with Plato's …

Tomáš Dvořák. 2009. “Beyond Is Nothing.” Exhibition text, Entrance Gallery, Prague, 3 December 2009 to 3 January 2010.

Hynek Alt: Photographer. First name Last name: Occupation. Business card, self-identification, self-fashioning. In the case of photography we should better say: self-portrait. In the case of Hynek Alt, the photographer, we should better say: a video of a …

Tomáš Dvořák. 2007. “Photographer / Fotograf.” Exhibition text, Hynek Alt: Fotograf, Ateliér Josefa Sudka, Prague, 2007.

... No Audible Dialogue consists of two photographs, of two scenes with a narration that can be described as alternation (on one photograph we see Vajd back/Alt face, on the other Vajd face/Alt back; while one is “here” due to its face, the other is “gone” …

Marina Gržinić. 2006. “No Audible Dialogue.” On Aleksandra Vajd and Hynek Alt, No Audible Dialogue, 2006. In Aleksandra Vajd and Hynek Alt, Works 2001–2011. Portfolio, October 2011.

Aleksandra Vajd & Hynek Alt Empire On/Off (archival inkjet print, 2005) re-photographs Andy Warhol's film Empire (1964), which comprises 485 minutes of film capturing a single view of the Empire State Building in New York, from early evening until nearly 3 …

Marina Gržinić. 2006. “Empire On/Off.” In Not-quite/Not-right: Histories, Bodies and Concepts in Contemporary Photography, House of Photography, Novo Mesto, Slovenia, 2006.

On a periphery next to a newspaper stand in an old street-display case a strange image appears. The display case itself is strange enough. During the past years it has been used by many, by gardeners' association as well as rebels. Next to the newspaper …

Pavel Vančát. 2005. “Exposed.” Exhibition text, Hynek Alt: Exposed, Vitrínka P. A. S., Prague, 2005.

Hynek Alt and Aleksandra Vajd, are not solely a Czech-Slovenian collaborative artistic team within the medium of photography, they are aswell a couple in life. They were in charge of the workshop course titled Photographic Author's Book in 2002 /2003 at Famu, …

Marina Gržinić. 2004. “Man Woman (Unfinished).” On Aleksandra Vajd and Hynek Alt, ManWomanUnfinished, 2001–2004.

When does the moment come, when the gaze of two people looking at each other changes into a dialogue? When do looks stop being glancing and they become unique language, which lets them understand each other? In moments when intimity and mutual trust can toss …

Pavel Turek. n.d. “Man Woman Unfinished.” On Aleksandra Vajd and Hynek Alt, ManWomanUnfinished, 2001–2004.