The Doppelganger 14. 11. 2025 – 1. 4. 2026
Curator: Kristýna Jirátová
The exhibition will present, through a diverse selection of both Czech and foreign artworks and in the context of literature, psychology and philosophy, the phenomenon of the doppelganger. The theme of the double has occupied the human mind since ancient times. In Egypt for example, great emphasis was placed on maintaining contact between the deceased individual and the world of the living, either through a faithful portrait of the dead person or a doppelganger of the deceased, a Ka, who remained as his or her representative on earth. In a sense, the story of Narcissus, who fell in love with his own image, is also connected with the doppelganger phenomenon.
A typical example of multiple personalities in literature is Robert Louis Stevenson’s book The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray, on the other hand, remains a young man thanks to his portrait, which takes on all his hardships and old age. Then, when he tries to destroy his painting, he kills himself in the process. Doppelgangerism or split personality is also one of Dostoevsky’s key themes.
The motif of doubling is one of the fundamental themes of Romantic culture. Romanticism comes, for example, with the so-called Rückenfigur, the motif of a character with his back turned to the viewer. This new type of observer suggests a multiplication of the viewer, as if his double or shadow were present in the picture, thanks to which he delves into the depth of the image (C. D. Friedrich). Thus, through the presence of the viewer’s double, the painting becomes their second reality, their inner world.
With a double, however, the troubling question always arises of what is the original and what is a copy (“reality” and “virtuality”). This has taken on a huge urgency in the contemporary world of digital technology. The origin of the term virtual reality can be traced back to Antonin Artaud who used it in the book The Theatre and Its Double. What he meant by virtual reality was a reality in which characters, objects and images adopt phantasmal visions of inner dramas. In today’s gaming industry, many people have their avatars, their alter egos. This virtual digital identity will become an increasingly important part of our lives, and at some point, it will be hard to know if you are talking to a human or their virtual double. Not to mention clones…
