Roman Týc

Roman Týc entered general awareness mainly through the actions of the Ztohoven Group. He is one of the founding members of this free association and a co-founder of the VJ collective PURE A (2005) and the Trafačka Centre for Alternative Culture (2007). He has been creating his own material since 1992.

Týc’s work is characterised by personal continuity, romantic fabulation conditional upon a desire for experience, and the thorough analysis of his own projects. He searches out the boundaries of the system in which he moves. His work is nourished by a tension which arises as a retrospective reaction to an intervention in the system and threshold balancing. He began as the writer Root (a name based on his original Scout pseudonym), and during this time first encountered the problematic of the legality and illegality of interventions in public space. In the second half of the nineties he began to concentrate on VJing, in which he applies analogous procedures during projection. He projects video collages created from drawings, paintings and newspaper clippings, which he places in new contexts. He applies his experience with re-contextualisation in other projects. He works with a primary simple idea, which he consciously allows to develop through the operation of random and controlled circumstances, and naturally deepens its plasticity.

An emphasis on authenticity is also characteristic of Týc. From subtle manifestations like the return to analogue, which during VJ´s projections appeals to the retention of direct creativity, through the game Cap Cop Cup (Take a Policeman’s Helmet, 2003), in which he stole policemen’s helmets from their heads in the streets of Prague while running or riding a scooter, to a voyage on the River Vltava on wood during the flooding of 2002 (captured in the video I, The River, 2002). This perspective can also be seen in two intimate videos: The Doors to My Bedroom (2004) and Grandma R.I.P. (2009) in the form of authentic audio traces.

Like many of his peers he is concerned with the issue of public space. From graffiti and tags, which he focussed on at random during the first half of the nineties, he arrived at a more considered form of street art. For instance, during the project Traffic Lights (2007) he replaced the lenses of fifty traffic lights containing static figures with figures in action – relaxing, urinating, sitting, crucified, etc. (he won a prize at the CINEMA 2007 Vienna Sidewalk Festival for this project). Two years later he intervened in the monument to 17 November 1989 on Národní třída in Prague. He expanded the relief with its V-for Victory symbol on the left side with the date 17 November 1939 and an arm giving the Nazi salute, and on the right with the date 17 November 2009 with hands raising the their middle finger.

Some of Týc’s work reveals a different character. This would include a series of photographs entitled Holidays with Ken (2004). In photographs with friends he replaced his own person with Ken, the male counterpart of the Barbie doll. An optimal illusion makes Ken appear as an almost genuinely adult man, with whom Týc photographed an autobiographical album in various settings.

Marek Gregor: Roman Týc zatčen, Reflex, 18. 6. 2010

Radek Wohlmuth: Roman Týc natočil Danu Bártovi klip. Guerilla v obchoďáku, týden.cz, 31.12.2009

Radek Wohlmuth: Památník 17. listopadu na Národní třídě hajluje a fuckuje, týden.cz, 22.11. 2009

Veronika Suchá: Umělec se hájí: Semafory rozhýbal Roman Týc, ne já, Aktuálně.cz, 16.4. 2008

Marcel Kabát: Roman Týc: Romantický trapič policistů, týden.cz, 16.04. 2008

Michael Kimmelman: That Mushroom Cloud? They’re Just Svejking Around, NewYorkTimes/Art, 24. 1. 2008

Petr Volf: Takový umělecký bastard, Rozhovor s Romanem Týcem, Reflex č. 34/2007

Radek Wohlmuth: Romantýcké semafory získaly cenu v Rakousku, Aktuálně.cz, 12.9. 2007

Dalibor Záhora: My prostě máme strach…, blisty.cz, 25.6.2007

Dominik Herzán: Kráva č. 23 – prezident, poslanci, občané a JXD, e-architekt, 23. 10. 2004

Dominik Herzán: Kráva č. 23, informace a dezinformace, e-architekt, 23. 6. 2004

Radek Wohlmuth: Roman Týc, Umělec, 1/2004

cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_T%C3%BDc

www.ztohoven.com

www.purea.cz

vimeo.com/user2294146/videos/sort:date