Roman Týc entered general awareness mainly through the actions of the Ztohoven Group. He is one of the founding members of this free association and a co-founder of the VJ collective PURE A (2005) and the Trafačka Centre for Alternative Culture (2007). He has been creating his own material since 1992.

Týc’s work is characterised by personal continuity, romantic fabulation conditional upon a desire for experience, and the thorough analysis of his own projects. He searches out the boundaries of the system in which he moves. His work is nourished by a tension which arises as a retrospective reaction to an intervention in the system and threshold balancing. He began as the writer Root (a name based on his original Scout pseudonym), and during this time first encountered the problematic of the legality and illegality of interventions in public space. In the second half of the nineties he began to concentrate on VJing, in which he applies analogous procedures during projection. He projects video collages created from drawings, paintings and newspaper clippings, which he places in new contexts. He applies his experience with re-contextualisation in other projects. He works with a primary simple idea, which he consciously allows to develop through the operation of random and controlled circumstances, and naturally deepens its plasticity.

An emphasis on authenticity is also characteristic of Týc. From subtle manifestations like the return to analogue, which during VJ´s projections appeals to the retention of direct creativity, through the game Cap Cop Cup (Take a Policeman’s Helmet, 2003), in which he stole policemen’s helmets from their heads in the streets of Prague while running or riding a scooter, to a voyage on the River Vltava on wood during the flooding of 2002 (captured in the video I, The River, 2002). This perspective can also be seen in two intimate videos: The Doors to My Bedroom (2004) and Grandma R.I.P. (2009) in the form of authentic audio traces.

Like many of his peers he is concerned with the issue of public space. From graffiti and tags, which he focussed on at random during the first half of the nineties, he arrived at a more considered form of street art. For instance, during the project Traffic Lights (2007) he replaced the lenses of fifty traffic lights containing static figures with figures in action – relaxing, urinating, sitting, crucified, etc. (he won a prize at the CINEMA 2007 Vienna Sidewalk Festival for this project). Two years later he intervened in the monument to 17 November 1989 on Národní třída in Prague. He expanded the relief with its V-for Victory symbol on the left side with the date 17 November 1939 and an arm giving the Nazi salute, and on the right with the date 17 November 2009 with hands raising the their middle finger.

Some of Týc’s work reveals a different character. This would include a series of photographs entitled Holidays with Ken (2004). In photographs with friends he replaced his own person with Ken, the male counterpart of the Barbie doll. An optimal illusion makes Ken appear as an almost genuinely adult man, with whom Týc photographed an autobiographical album in various settings.

2010
Křížová cesta, Egon Shiele Art centrum, Český Krumlov

2009
Není co slavit, Národní třída, Praha
Babička R.I.P.

2008
Pomníčky

2007
Křížová cesta, Praha
Semafory, Praha
Heavy sugar

2006
Eskalátor, Praha

2005
Holokunst

2004
Dveře z mého dětského pokoje
Prázdniny s Kenem

2003
Ohnívání, Praha
Paralely
Balet

2002
Já řeka, Vltava, Praha
Barvy

2001
Stars

2010
Ztohoven, Občan K.

2007
Ztohoven, Mediální realita

2003
Ztohoven, Znásilněný podvědomí
Ztohoven, Otazník nad hradem

Marek Gregor: Roman Týc zatčen, Reflex, 18. 6. 2010
Radek Wohlmuth: Roman Týc natočil Danu Bártovi klip. Guerilla v obchoďáku, týden.cz, 31.12.2009
Radek Wohlmuth: Památník 17. listopadu na Národní třídě hajluje a fuckuje, týden.cz, 22.11. 2009
Veronika Suchá: Umělec se hájí: Semafory rozhýbal Roman Týc, ne já, Aktuálně.cz, 16.4. 2008
Marcel Kabát: Roman Týc: Romantický trapič policistů, týden.cz, 16.04. 2008
Michael Kimmelman: That Mushroom Cloud? They’re Just Svejking Around, NewYorkTimes/Art, 24. 1. 2008
Petr Volf: Takový umělecký bastard, Rozhovor s Romanem Týcem, Reflex č. 34/2007
Radek Wohlmuth: Romantýcké semafory získaly cenu v Rakousku, Aktuálně.cz, 12.9. 2007
Dalibor Záhora: My prostě máme strach…, blisty.cz, 25.6.2007
Dominik Herzán: Kráva č. 23 – prezident, poslanci, občané a JXD, e-architekt, 23. 10. 2004
Dominik Herzán: Kráva č. 23, informace a dezinformace, e-architekt, 23. 6. 2004
Radek Wohlmuth: Roman Týc, Umělec, 1/2004

cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_T%C3%BDc
www.ztohoven.com/
www.purea.cz/
vimeo.com/user2294146/videos/sort:date