Half Board

Lukáš Machalický (1984) has a long history of creating exhibitions that straddle the line between architecture, sculpture and object art and in which he explores subjects associated with urbanism, architecture and the social memory of specific places. His works are characterised by architectural rigour, careful consideration and an eye for detail, but they also create situations that move back and forth between certainty and uncertainty. The exhibition titled Half Board is a site-specific installation in the Crossovers exhibition space at the former Jesuit College. The installation responds to the historic character of the place while simultaneously transforming it into a new and constructed environment through which Machalický explores the present day and its eclectic nature. In this way, he follows on from earlier projects in which he worked with the concepts of stage sets, fiction and mystification while calling attention to the increasingly blurred line between reality and its representation in today’s manufactured (media and otherwise) world. At the centre of the installation is the Vaníček Hotel, built in the 1990s on the site of a garage as a distinctive expression of the era’s image of luxury, social status and power. Its architecture also acts as a model for a structure, a construction that visitors walk through. The geometrical construction is also a reference to 3D modelling programs and accentuates the relationship between the physical and virtual space. Entering into this contrasting environment gives viewers a space for personal reflection. Machalický understands architecture as reflecting our relationship to the contemporary world. He constructs situations that feel both familiar and unsettling, and in this way raises questions as to the value system of contemporary society. Lukáš Machalický (*1984) is a graduate of the Academy of Arts, Architecture, and Design in Prague (2003–2009). He did a study exchange at Berlin’s UdK in 2008 and lectured at Charles University from 2012 to 2014. He co-founded Galerie SPZ in 2011, and has headed the gallery along with Mark Ther since 2024. From 2016 to 2023, he was the assistant and subsequently head teacher of the Painting 1 studio at Prague’s Academy of Fine Arts. Machalický is the co-author of the books Předbíháš, když jsi v řadě? (Do you jump in queues?) and Knock Knock. He has participated in artists’ residencies in Olomouc (Telegraph Gallery), New York (ISCP), Krakow (Imago Mundi), Bratislava (SPACE), and Florence (FUA). Besides regularly exhibiting at home and abroad, he has also created the architectural design for a number of exhibitions.