The philosopher, aesthetician, and art theorist Petr Rezek has died

At the age of 74, philosopher, aesthetician, and art theorist Petr Rezek passed away this Tuesday. This was reported by the Academy of Art in Prague, where he taught. The educator was among the students of philosopher Jan Patočka and had close ties to art historian and curator Jindřich Chalupecký. During the normalization period, he could only hold unqualified jobs, leading flat seminars and publishing in samizdat.

Rezek focused on architecture, performance, the theory of kitsch, and had a significant influence on numerous students across various fields that his thinking transcended.

He was born on January 9, 1948, studied psychology, philosophy, and aesthetics at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University, and subsequently worked as a clinical psychologist for several years. In the 1970s, he primarily dealt with issues of phenomenological psychology and the phenomenology of art; in the 1980s, partly due to the possibilities of secret cooperation with foreign colleagues, he began to engage more intensively with ancient philosophy. He introduced critical studies and translations of Aristotle, Plato, and Plotinus into the local environment.

In samizdat, he also published critical reflections on the thinking of some Czech intellectuals, including later president Václav Havel. His constant irony and questioning of the opinions of those who considered them revealed truths led to Rezek sometimes being labeled as the enfant terrible of Czech philosophy.

After 1989, he initiated the creation of the PomFil (Philosopher's Assistant) series at the Oikúmené publishing house. Even at a time when performance was hardly known, he published extensive philosophical studies on performance and performativity in samizdat.

In the 1980s, he led a philosophical apartment seminar and co-organized secret visits from British academics. He published texts in samizdat. After the regime change, he established his own publishing house, in which he made new Czech translations of Aristotle accessible, among other things.

He joined the Academy of Art in Prague and the Faculty of Arts of Charles University, later working at the Faculty of Arts and Architecture of the Technical University of Liberec.

In 2010, he received the Tom Stoppard Award for the book "Architektonika a protoarchitektura." Five years later, he received the F. X. Šalda Award for outstanding achievement in the field of art criticism for the book "Proklouznutí neboli smrt."