Michael Rittstein: Tarzan Kangaroo

The book and exhibition of the Kangaroo Tarzan of the same name presents Rittstein's last four creative years as an imaginative documentary filmmaker on his travels to our cradles of civilization in time and space. As an admirer of historical events and their contribution to the development of mankind in his recent travels, he chose India and Mexico, as well as Australia, as places.
events of his imaginary stories (Tarzan Kangaroo comics) or just as an attentive and empathetic viewer of the situations and details that take place around him.
Whether it's garbage collectors, children playing on Indian streets, or a resting tramp or mechanic from a Mexican car repair shop, or hunting mammoths and other wildlife in ancient prehistoric times, these fleeting fragments of ordinary human lives that take place today and every day around us and we, due to the accelerated rhythm of time, we rather pass them unnoticed, Rittstein chooses as the main actors of his canvases, often with a careful study of movement, and thus materializes traces of these experiences with eternal validity.
With the same devotion and playfulness, he turns to micro-stories of various animal species, mostly 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 painting receive respect, honor and qualities comparable to the human species.
At the same time, both Rittstein and Darwinist perceive the importance of the balance of all living things, and his paintings are proof of that. A thousand and one movements and stories of a domestic cat, which is his daily inspiration, mouse curious people on a trip to the gallery of modern art, women as intimate friends of creatures of the animal kingdom are already a significant element for the author and are completely
inseparable. Occasionally grotesque productions of common human-animal stories from Rittstein's fantasy prove his life's joys and popularity of fiction.

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