Tryzna za Jana Palacha/Requiem for Jan Palach 1969

This is Jaroslav Kaiser’s, Requiem for Jan Palach, made with a screenprint on paper. This piece feels like a process of working through a feeling. The shapes are soft, almost like memories fading at the edges, smudged in a way that makes them feel very human and vulnerable. The colors are muted, mostly greys and blacks, except for these hits of gold and red that pop out. It’s like little embers of life amidst all this darkness. Look at the shapes, almost teardrop-like, or are they flames? There's this portrait down at the bottom, floating in a dark, glossy shape, the only clarity in this otherwise hazy world. The Ben-Day dots feel like a kind of mechanical reproduction of grief, a collective mourning made up of tiny, repeated units. This piece reminds me a little of some of Gerhard Richter’s blurred portraits, that same sense of something slipping away, just beyond our grasp. It’s a kind of elegy, I think, one that embraces uncertainty and resists any easy answers.