INDIE TWINS

Born in 1979 in Prague, Jakub Hošek has studied at the Prague Academy of Fine Arts since 1998 (atelier of Vladimír Skrepl)
Born in 1982 in Prague, Anežka Hošková has studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Brno since 2001 (ateliers of Václav Stratil and Petr Kvíčala).

The various activities of the siblings Hošek, now known as the Indie Twins, are in many ways a solid leap beyond the local standard. First, they demonstrate that for some members of the young generation the visual arts itself is not the ultimate goal, but one possible avenue towards broader interdisciplinary activity. The Indie Twins got together with a few peers and founded the small multifunctional space A.M. 180 in Prague. They cooperate with independent music labels in the Czech Republic and abroad; they sell their albums, organize concerts, film projections and exhibitions. At one point the Hošek’s had their own program on the TV music station O, and Jakub Hošek has illustrated a few booklets.
But the Indie Twins do study the visual arts, and they comment on and refer to each other’s work. The lines of force that radiate between the various media they employ often converge as colorfully flippant paintings, shaped by the global look of post-teenage pop. Looking at the works of the Indie Twins, one would say that they are altogether stylish. But their technically perfect work allows for no expressive gestures, while at the same time their non-violent remix of comics, Flash esthetics and fashion creates tension between “fashion” and “communication.”

Jakub opts for the more sophisticated methods: for two years he laboriously cut motifs from stickers and then layered paint over them on canvas. Last year he combined stylized images of houses and landscapes with fragments of lyrics from painful French chansons; this year he is making borderline abstract compositions that look like stiff, pastel-colored paraphrases of surrealism. He
also designs the poster and leaflet mock-ups for A.M.180.

Anežka relies on transcriptions of simple motifs in her several colorful and compositional pictures inhabited by animals and stylized heroines. There no space here for evil and hostility. The world can be a beautiful place, if the illusion, glamour and fairytales are allowed to come out. A naive depiction does not necessarily mean a stupid one.

Jakub has even done a few installations, including a boy’s room covered with posters (with co-artist Marek Ther), and fairytale shacks and castles roughly nailed together, as if Walt Disney were building houses for the homeless. Anežka once made a photographic story of Little Red Ridinghood and the Wolf. Though in this version a good-natured German shepherd tags along after Ridinghood and the blood and guts of the drama are nowhere to be found.

www.am180.org
Jakub Hošek: indie_twin_boy@am180.org
Anežka Hošková: indie_twin_girl@am180.org

01.03.2003