Jan Tichy (born in 1974) lives and works in Chicago. He is a graduate of the Advanced Studies program at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, and holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he also lectures today. Tichy works in a variety of mediums, video, sculpture, architecture and photography. His work consists of a minimalist language through which he explores hidden structures, social issues and hidden political forces. Tichy has exhibited solo exhibitions at prestigious museums and galleries including the Fridman Gallery, New York (2020); Galerie Kornfeld, Berlin, Germany (2019); Berman Museum of Art, Collegeville, PA (2017); Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California (2016); Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, IL (2016); Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL (2012). In addition, he participated in many group exhibitions, his works are part of important collections and he won multiple prestigious awards.
MIII JAFFA: Hi Jan, how are you doing these days?
J.T: Like most artists-educators, I am in the middle of a strange semester, teaching hybrid classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Online art education is a demanding platform that challenges the traditional ideas of accessibility and offers new solutions that I believe will be relevant the day after.
MIII JAFFA: Can you tell us something about your work from M III collection we see here?
J.T: Dimona (2006) is a paper cut out model of the nuclear facility activated by time based projection and accompanied by takeaway posters with the cut out layout offered to the audience to build their own nuclear reactor.
The installation comes from a body of works exploring the powers of inaccessible places, the other sites were Dahania, 2006 also in Magasin III collection, a model of Yasser Arafat International Airport and Facility 1391, 2007, a paper model of IDF secret prison.
MIII JAFFA: In the context of these days, do you experience it differently?
J.T: When I was making these objects, I was interested in working through the constraints of inaccessibility that these sites present to local democracy. In the process I never left the studio, collecting all the accessible information online and imagining the missing parts. Today this approach to the world has been imposed to a certain degree on all of us.
MIII JAFFA: What are you working on right now?
J.T: Last week I opened from a long distance a solo exhibition in Dessau, Germany created during my summer residency in the Bauhaus Master Houses. Currently I am working with a group of young artists in Dallas, TX to share their stories of migration.
MIII JAFFA: Thoughts about the future?
J.T: The imposed separation is pushing us to find alternative ways of communication and I feel that as artists we have always been able to re-imagine the way we connect with our audiences.
