Contemporary Czech Photography
- Fano Blatný
- Václav Jirásek
- Igor Malijevsky
- Ivan Pinkava
- Jan Pohribný
- Miro Švolík
- Peter Župník
Although a small country in central Europe, the Czech Republic, like Holland, Hungary, and Switzerland, has a strong photographic tradition. In parallel with photographers in Germany and the Soviet Union, Jaromír Funke, Eugen Wiškovský, Jaroslav Rössler, and a number of other Czech photographers in the 1920s and 1930s developed the ideas of New Objectivity, Constructivism, and Surrealism. Today, the work of leading figures of Czech photography, past and present, like František Drtikol, Josef Sudek, Jan Saudek, Josef Koudelka, and, most recently, Miroslav Tichý, have achieved world renown.
The works presented in this exhibition have been made during the last twenty years in conditions of political and economic change. In late 1989 the East bloc fell apart and then, in 1993, Czechoslovakia divided into two independent states. Miro Švolík and Peter Župník are Slovaks, but since they attended a Czech school of photography and have worked and lived in the Czech Republic, they are usually included as part of both Czech and Slovak photography.
Despite some nuanced special features that certain specialists attribute to it, Czech photography is really not much different from works one finds in the rest of Euro-American culture. In addition to the strong tradition of documentary photography, new conceptual approaches have become slightly more prominent in recent years. In the long run, however, more spectacular pictorial styles have been developing here. From the wide range of contemporary Czech photography, See+ Gallery has concentrated on these approaches. It is showing works by remarkable photographers, who are now not only well known in the Czech Republic, but have also established solid reputations elsewhere in the world.
The 1980s in Czechoslovakia are characterized by the rise of the second generation of staged photography. Some members of this generation have been called (echoing a term applied to the generation of 1960s Czechoslovak film-makers including the Miloš Forman, Věra Chytilová, and Jaroslav Papoušek) the ‘Slovak New Wave’. Bringing a postmodern lightness to photography, they are represented at the exhibition by Švolík and Župník. In contrast to heavily serious photographic work, their photos appear non-committal and playful. In the mid-1980s, Miro Švolík became well known for photographs which he made first by painting, mostly with water, on asphalt and paved city surfaces, thus forming the backgrounds for his figures, people lying in various positions on the ground, which he then photographed from high vantage points. His works refer back to avant-garde photographic collages, but are full of postmodern playfulness, buoyant eroticism, and the poetry of Slovak fairy tales. In the same period, Peter Župník began to make subtle painterly additions to his snapshots, turning everyday life into something unusually poetic.
These principles of playfulness are almost the opposite of the approach taken in works created by Czech photographers in the same period, for example, the staged portraits of Ivan Pinkava and the Brotherhood group, of which Václav Jirásek was a member. These Czechs created their photographs with intentional traditionalism, making casual references to Decadence, Art Nouveau, and Mannerism and the Baroque. Ivan Pinkava has made staged photographic portraits since 1986, half-figures with closed eyes, in homage to his favourite writers and philosophers. He has been profoundly influenced by the European tradition of painting and sculpture, Decadent literature, Symbolism, traditional painting and sculpture, as well as themes from the Bible and classical mythology.
Václav Jirásek gradually moved from photography that ironically employed the engagé photographs of socialist realism to a redefinition of the Christian tradition, mysticism, and Decadent romanticism. He inventively works the European tradition of pathos and the postmodern flirtation with the aesthetics of kitsch into the details of his staged photos, usually made from large-format negatives.
Jan Pohribný is one of the few photographers in the Czech Republic who has, since his early works in the mid-1980s, devoted himself to the now infrequent subject of the landscape. His giant prints hover on the boundary of land-art and traditional aestheticized photography. Drawing with coloured light while taking his landscape photos, he links a classic conception of the landscape together with staging and action, making visual the aura of the place and the energy of the animated land.
In addition to works by photographers who rose on the strong wave of staged photography in the 1980s, and have been included in Czech photography exhibitions since the second half of that decade, the current exhibition has works by two younger photographers: his kaleidoscopic photomontages, Fano Blatný recycles fragments of travel snapshots, transforming them into ornaments of cyclical repetition. Using old methods of developing and printing, his photography makes reference to traditional children’s toys, accentuates the centre, and constitutes a playful European response to traditional Asian art. Igor Malijevský more or less comes out of the Czech tradition. Many theorists have argued that lyricism is the basic feature of Czech photography. Lyricism was indeed used to define Czech photography against the precise, fraught, and matter-of-fact photography of Germany, the Czechs’ larger, stronger neighbour. Like Sudek, Malijevský puts the accent on mood created with light, drawing on the atmosphere of Prague and other old Czech towns. For him photography is the poetic experience of seeing the fleeting moment.
Last but not least, the photographers in this exhibition are linked by their wide-ranging dialogue with the European visual tradition. The messages of their photographs relate not only to what they depict, but also to what has been depicted up to the time these photographs were made. It is as if they are continuously confirming the notion that text and image comprise a fabric of quotations taken from innumerable cultural centres. To paraphrase another Czech, Milan Kundera, the art of the picture is the art of contexts. Each work is a response to its predecessors. Each photograph contains all the previous experience of photography. Employing photography in the sphere of art, we also immediately feel that its contents address us not merely by reflecting reality, but also, indeed mainly, by the rich web of contexts it relates to.
Tomáš Pospěch
The novel’s spirit is the spirit of continuity: each work is an answer to preceding ones, each work contains all the previous experience of the novel.’ Milan Kundera, ‘The Depreciated Legacy of Cervantes’, The Art of the Novel, trans. from the French by Linda Asher, 1986; New York: Grove, 1988, pp. 18‒19.
当代捷克摄影
- Fano Blatný
- Václav Jirásek
- Igor Malijevsky
- Ivan Pinkava
- Jan Pohribný
- Miro Švolík
- Peter Župník
捷克共和国虽只是个位于中欧的小国，但也如荷兰、匈牙利和瑞士一样，有着深厚的摄影传统。在1920至30年代间，Jaromír Funke、Eugen Wiškovský、Jaroslav Rössler以及众多其他的捷克摄影家们，与德国和苏联的摄影家们齐头并进，拓展了新客观主义、构成主义和超现实主义的概念。今天，诸如František Drtikol、Josef Sudek、Jan Saudek、Josef Koudelka以及最近的Miroslav Tichý这些捷克过去及现在顶尖摄影家的作品都已闻名于全球。
本次展览中的作品是在过去20年不断变化的政治经济局势下拍摄而成。1989年末，东部的围墙倒塌，随后的1993年，捷克和斯洛伐克分成了两个独立的国家。Miro Švolík和Peter Župník是斯洛伐克人，但因为他们曾在捷克的一家摄影学校学习，并在捷克共和国工作与生活，他俩通常都被认为是这两国的摄影家。
除了某些专家特别指出的一些细微的特点之外，捷克的摄影同来自其他欧美文化的作品相比，实在没有许多不同。纪实摄影是传统强项，而近几年来，新概念的方式已经变得更为显著。然而从长期来看，更多奇妙的拍摄风格已经在这里发展。在捷克当代摄影的范畴中，北京see+画廊专注于这些方式，并正在展示那些杰出摄影家的作品，他们不仅在捷克国内有名，而且也在全球范围内收获了坚实的声望。
第二代编导式摄影的崛起是捷克斯洛伐克1980年代的一大特色。这代人里的一些成员被称为“斯洛伐克新浪潮”，这一术语回应了对于1960年代捷克斯洛伐克的电影人——包括Miloš Forman, Věra Chytilová以及Jaroslav Papoušek等这代人的称谓。在Švolík 和Župník的作品展中，可以看到这一点给摄影带来了后现代的一束光芒。比起极其严肃的摄影作品，他俩的照片显得没有责任感，而且充满了玩乐的趣味。在1980年代中期，Miro Švolík的成名方式是先在城市的地面上画出背景（绝大多数是用水），然后让人们以各种姿势躺在上面，他自己便从高处往下拍摄。他的作品让人回想起先锋派的拼贴画，但又充满了后现代的玩乐主义、情色主义以及斯洛伐克童话的诗意。与此同时，Peter Župník开始在他的抓拍中加入了精妙的画家般的元素，让日常生活变得如诗歌一样不同寻常。
与同时期的捷克摄影家的作品，如Ivan Pinkava的编导式人像以及Václav Jirásek所在的兄弟会等采用的拍摄方式相比，这些玩乐的原则几乎是其对立面。那些捷克摄影家刻意采用了传统主义的风格来拍摄作品，参考了颓废主义、新艺术派、矫饰主义以及巴洛克风格。Ivan Pinkava从1986年起开始拍摄编导式人像摄影，那些双目紧闭的半身像，向他最爱的作家和哲人致敬。欧洲传统绘画与雕塑、颓废文学、象征主义、以及圣经中的主题和古典神话等对他影响深刻。
Václav Jirásek的摄影从社会主义写实派逐渐转变成了重新定义基督教传统、神秘主义以及颓废浪漫主义。他创造性地将欧洲传统的哀愁以及对于媚俗审美的后现代挑逗加入到他编导式摄影的细节中，通常这些作品都是大画幅负片。
Jan Pohribný 属于捷克为数不多的那类摄影家之一，他从1980年中期的早期作品起就致力于拍摄现在不常有的风景主题。他那巨大的印记盘旋在风景艺术与传统美学摄影的边界。通过在拍摄风景照片时以彩色光线绘画，他将对于风景的古典概念与编导和动作联系起来，让拍摄地点的光环以及动感大地的能量得以显现。
在1980年代编导式摄影浪潮中涌现出的摄影家的作品，自80年代后期便出现在了捷克的摄影展中。作为对于这些作品的补充，本次展览还展出了两位年轻摄影家的作品。Fano Blatný万花筒般的集成照片，是通过回收旅行中抓拍照片的碎片，使之成为轮转式重复出现的装饰物制作而成。他的摄影参考了传统儿童玩具，使用古法，强调中心，以玩乐的欧洲方式回应了传统亚洲艺术。Igor Malijevský多少源于捷克传统。许多理论家对于抒情是捷克摄影的基本特点争执不休。抒情确实被用于区别捷克摄影与德国摄影——这个比捷克更大更强的邻国。就像Sudek，Malijevský强调用光来创造心情，描绘布拉格和其他捷克古镇的环境。对他来说，摄影就是对于目睹飞逝瞬间的诗意经历。
最后，本次展览中的摄影家们之间是通过他们和欧洲视觉传统的广泛对话而联系起来的。他们作品中的信息不仅和他们所表达的相关。而且也与作品所拍摄的年代起已被表达的相关。就像是这些作品在连续不断地确认这个观点，即文字和图像组成了取自于无数文化中心的引用语录所构成的织物。用另一个捷克人—米兰·昆德拉的话来解释，图画的艺术是语境的艺术。每部作品都是对其前辈的回应。每张照片都包含了之前所有的摄影经验。 通过在艺术的范畴内运用摄影，我们也立刻感受到，它的内容不仅以反映现实，而且，实际上也是主要通过它所相关的丰富的语境网络来告知我们。
Tomáš Pospěch
“小说的精神是连续性的精神：每部作品是对于之前作品的应答，每部作品包含了所有之前的经验”米兰·昆德拉，《塞万提斯的遗产》，刊登于《小说的艺术》，由Linda Asher译自法文版，1986; New York: Grove, 1988, pp. 18‒19.