Otto M. Urban

HIDDEN Podcast: David Lynch – Up in Flames with Otto M. UrbanIn this episode of the HIDDEN Podcast, we go behind the scenes of Up in Flames — the most comprehensive exhibition of David Lynch’s visual art ever presented anywhere in the world. Curator Otto M. Urban takes us through the show at DOX in Prague, where lithographs, drawings, watercolors, photographs, objects, and experimental films converge into a raw, unsettling portrait of an artist obsessed with insects, fire, dream logic, and subconscious decay.Urban speaks candidly about curatorial decisions, the collaboration with Lynch’s team, and why the exhibition avoids traditional chronology in favor of intuitive, visual echo. Alongside Filip Kartousek and Kamil Princ, the conversation turns to deeper cultural questions: Why have we forgotten how to look? How does visual oversaturation numb our sensitivity? And why is reading not just about knowledge — but about training the eye?Otto argues that “aesthetics” shouldn’t be taught in schools. Instead, children should draw, sing, and build — through making, they learn to feel. Beauty can’t be explained, but it can be experienced. Up in Flames embodies that idea: it doesn’t explain Lynch, it lets you meet him, image to image, in tension and silence.This conversation is in Czech