Michael Rittstein: Kangaroo Tarzan

Publication summarizing the author's painting approach and work from the last decades.

The book and exhibition of the same name, Kangaroos Tarzan, represent the last four creative years of Rittstein as an imaginative documentarian of his traveling expeditions to our civilization's cradles in time and space. As an admirer of historical events and their contribution to the development of humanity, in his last travels he chose India and Mexico as his destination, in his memories also Australia, as the location of his imaginary stories (Tarzan the Kangaroo comic) or just as an attentive and empathetic viewer of the situations and details that take place around him. Whether they are garbage collectors, children playing on an Indian street, or a vagabond resting or a mechanic from a Mexican auto repair shop, or hunting mammoths and other wild animals in ancient prehistoric times, these fleeting fragments of ordinary human lives that today and they take place around us every day and we tend to pass them by without noticing due to the accelerated rhythm of time, Rittstein chooses the main actors of his canvases, often with a careful study of movement, and thus materializes the traces of these experiences with eternal validity. With the same devotion and playfulness, he turns to micro-stories various animal species mainly of Czech provenance, a kind of animal farm from the present. As an almost lifelong resident of the West Bohemian village of Brnířov, of which he is a proud patron, he is surrounded by animals, which in his eyes and in his paintings receive respect, honor and qualities comparable to the human species. his paintings are proof of that. A thousand and one movements and stories of a domestic cat, which is his daily inspiration, curious mice on a trip to a modern art gallery, women as intimate friends of creatures of the animal kingdom are already a significant element for the author and are completely inseparable from him. The grotesque productions of common human-animal stories from Rittstein's imagination, sometimes set up in a scenographic manner, prove his joy in life and his love of fables.

Bilingual publication with an introduction by Blanka Čermáková, summarizing the author's approach and work from the last decades, an interview with the author about his painting approach with a look back at his personal history and a selection of works from the last four years. The author of the graphic design of the publication is Jana Vahalíková.

Curator, texts: Blanka Čermáková
Production: Blanka Čermáková, Dominika Vaňková
Graphic design: Jana Vahalíková
Photography: František, Zhoř, Zuzana Erbenová, Tomáš Rasl
Translation: Phil Jones
Text proofs: Tereza Hubáčková
Printing: Tiskárna Helbich, s.r.o.
Number of copies: 500 pcs/pc
Published by Spolek Trafačka as its 32. publication