Jirí Valoch: Curator, Theoretician, Collector, Years 1965-1980. By Helena Musilová

Illus. throughout. 219 pp. & colophon. 4to, pictorial softcover. Prague: National Gallery Prague, 2018.


The rare English edition of this amply illustrated monograph on Valoch (b. 1946). The book comprehensively details his substantial contributions to Czech art from the 60s to 80s, as well as the formation of his important archive of Eastern European avant-garde art.


From p. 11: "Valoch and his activities in the artistic realm may serve as the basis for the evaluation of the development of Czech, Slovak, and partially also European art scene from the middle of the 1960s. Analyzing Valoch's activities will gradually unveil a system created by a very active artist and curator, we might call it networking in current terms...


"Valoch's work as an artist was inseparably connected with his activities as a curator and theoretician from the beginning of his active presence in the artistic world. The following characterization generally applies to Valoch as an artist as well as a poet, curator, critic, musician, theoretician, collector, or pedagogue - in Valoch's personality these activities often blend. Valoch's world is the reflection of language, its visual, semantical, and relational linkage. He is primarily interested in work which uses the language of geometry, Visual and Conceptual Poetry in a manifold way, i.e. Graphical Music or Phonic Poetry, conceptual and post-conceptual photography, installations (textual and intervention), and landscape events and interventions..."


In fine condition. WorldCat locates only four copies in the United States.