HIDDEN Podcast: Jan Vytiska & Jakub Janovský

In the new episode of the HIDDEN Podcast, we meet painters Jan Vytiska and Jakub Janovský in their joint exhibition THE DEVIL GAZES ALSO INTO YOU at Hell Smoke BBQ in Prague. Inspired by Nietzsche’s famous image of the abyss gazing back at us, the exhibition replaces the abyss with the figure of the Devil and explores memory, childhood, death, violence, folklore and the darker sides of human nature.

The conversation begins with the artists discussing each other’s work and the very different memories embedded in their paintings. Janovský speaks about childhood, post-communist landscapes, distorted memories and his series of concentration camps reconstructed from children’s building blocks. Vytiska discusses folklore, pagan rituals, desire, death and the recurring figure of the Devil in his paintings.

We also talk about cinema and the influence of Andrei Tarkovsky, the aesthetics of old Flash websites, moving images, music and underground communities, working with found photographs, and the return to traditional painting in the age of AI. The artists consider what makes a handmade image different from an AI-generated one, and why imperfection, mistakes and physical intervention may become increasingly important.

Finally, we discuss the idea of depression in art, the tension between darkness and colour, and whether images dealing with death and evil can ultimately become celebrations of life.