In the Dressing Room at a Benefit

The work In the Dressing Room at a Benefit by the Czech representative of fantastic realism Josef Liesler is an exceptional example of his output from the late 1980s. At the center stands a wrinkled man, an actor or poet, with a laurel wreath, gazing far into the distance beyond the viewer, outside the boundaries of the painting itself. The left side is dominated by a figure in a sky-blue garment evoking characters from the world of science fiction. On the right, three figures enter the room with their faces concealed behind masquerade masks, alluding to the traditional characters of commedia dell’arte. This unusual gathering of disparate figures is complemented by a dancer in an elaborate costume and a puppet-like character reminiscent of comic book heroes. The presence of protagonists from seemingly unrelated genres enhances the grotesque character of the painting, whose main motif is not merely the depiction of theatrical or cinematic figures, but rather the theatre of the world – theatrum mundi – of which each of us is a part. The work was exhibited at Liesler’s monographic exhibition held in 2025 at Galerie KODL and is published in its catalogue under number 90.