TICHY, JAN

Untitled (macchinetta), 2014
Archival Pigment Print
15 3/4 x 6 ⅝ on 16 ¼ x 7 1/4 inch paper
Signed Edition of 50

Known for creating bodies of work about institutional inquiry, history and critique, Untitled (macchinetta), a uniquely personal work by Jan Tichy (Czech, b. 1974), shares an aesthetic with his other endeavors in its minimal, abstract and black and white qualities. Yet the fields of black, crystalline white markings, and pocked metal gray are in fact the closeup surface of Jan’s worn and loved stovetop coffee maker, self reflexively alluding to its role as creative fuel for all of Tichy’s ambitious artistic undertakings.

Born in Prague, Jan Tichy studied art in Israel before earning his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Tichy’s work is included in the collections of the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Magasin 3, Stockholm Konsthall, the MoCP, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Spertus Museum, Chicago, the Shpilman Institute of Photography, Tel Aviv, and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. He currently lives and works in Chicago, where he is now Assistant Professor in the Department of Photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2012, MoCP commissioned Tichy to do a year-long engagement with the Museum’s permanent collection, which culminated a year-end exhibition titled 1979:1–2012:21: Jan Tichy Works with the MoCP Collection.