Roman Týc (1974) is the pseudonym and as it were alter ego of a well known Czech artist-saboteur, real name David Hons (1974), long-term member and joint founder of the guerrilla art group Ztohoven, founder of the VJ art collective PureA (2005) and one of the initiators of the alternative culture centre Trafačka. Týc works primarily in public space; his artistic interventions are always witty and full of play and fun, although without exception they work as a short and mercilessly mordant commentary on contemporary Czech reality as well as on the contemporary global social-cultural situation. Týc started as street artist, actually the graffiti artist Root, working within DJ (VJ) graffiti subculture. He started problematising public spaces with his interventions in 2002, when he devoted himself more vigorously the issues of the un/lawful activity of the individual in a legally defined – in fact legislatively inhibiting – socio-political and cultural system. Apart from works with Ztohoven, such as Question mark over Prague Castle (2003), Media Reality (2007) and Moral Reform (2012), Týc is best known individually for Traffic Lights (2007) and also deals, alongside interventions, with video works (I River, 2002;Ballet, 2003).
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