Milan Kunc is one of the more prominent figures of the art scene of the second half of the twentieth century, with his work represented in numerous significant public and private collections around the world. Since the 1970s, he has developed a distinctive visual language in which pop-cultural aesthetics, irony, surrealist imagination, and a sensitive reflection on social change converge.

Painting, sculpture, installation, and performance serve in his work as means of observing a world in which everyday life meets absurdity, humour meets critique, and personal experience intersects with collective memory. Kunc brings together symbols of East and West, as well as high and popular culture, without imposing a hierarchy between them. It is precisely this ability to unite seemingly incompatible worlds that makes his work remarkably relevant to today’s geopolitical and social context.

The exhibition Pop Renaissance presents a selection of works from the 1980s alongside contemporary paintings that draw on this period or further develop motifs captured in the artist’s drawings from the time. The 1980s were an exceptionally prolific period in Kunc’s practice, shaped by a life lived between New York, Los Angeles, and Europe, where he worked in Rome, Milan, Cologne, and the Netherlands. It was during this period that he created works that would become part of major international collections and define his unique artistic vocabulary.

In these works, spontaneous painterly gestures alternate with precisely constructed compositions; references to popular culture intertwine with surrealist imagery, while everyday motifs acquire archetypal significance. Although many of the works were created more than forty years ago, their themes—consumerism, the power of images, ideology, identity, and humanity’s relationship with nature—remain strikingly relevant today.

The exhibition offers a view of an artist who has spent decades creating a distinctive vision of the contemporary world. His work is not merely a record of a particular era, but an open dialogue with the present, in which humour becomes a tool for critical thinking and painting a space for unfettered imagination.

Curator: Filip Kazda

Artwork shown in the preview

Am Rande der Verzweifelung, 1982

On the Brink of Despair

acrylic and emulsion on canvas

COLLETT Prague | Munich

Photo: Milan Havel