1. 奥古斯丁·司卡达 (1871-1937 年),捷克摄影师,曾与弗兰蒂泽克·德瑞提科共同开办了一個摄影工作室。
2. 约瑟夫·苏德克 (1896-1976年),现代主义摄影大师。第一次世界大战之后跟随杰罗米·芬克学习摄影。他是画意摄影的代表人物,被称为“布拉格的诗人”。
3. 阿道夫·斯尼波卡 (1897-1977 年),捷克摄影师,相機工程师。与杰罗米·芬克和斯尼波卡一起成立了“捷克摄影协会”。
4. 欧文·昆登菲尔德 (1869-1949年),德国摄影师,相機工程师和发明家。1901-1923在莱茵河大学执教摄影。他是二十世纪初非常重要的摄影师,其作品深受收藏家们喜爱。
5. 保罗·斯特兰德 (1890-1976年),美国现代主义摄影大师和导演。在二十世纪初推动了摄影成为艺术。他以拍摄的一组纽约的现代主义风格作品最为著名。
6. 阿尔文·兰登·寇伯恩 (1882-1966年),美国摄影师,画意摄影的重要人物,最早的抽象摄影家。1907被称為“世界上最好的摄影师”,那时候他24岁。
7. 弗朗西·普汝盖维尔 (1879-1945年),美国摄影师,雕塑家,画家和导演。以拍摄1906年旧金山的“地震” 系列而闻名。
8. 曼·雷 (1890-1979年),美国艺术家,在法国生活了很长时间。他是达达主义和超现实主义非常重要的人物。他是综合型艺术家,并以他的摄影最有著名,他发明的一种摄影体被称为“rayographs” (雷摄影) 。
9. 克雷尔·泰治 (1900-1951年),捷克前卫艺术非常重要的人物。他是平面设计师,摄影师和字体艺术家。他策划过很多重要展览和活动,并出版了一个杂志。
10. 爱德华·斯泰肯 (1879-1973年),出生在卢森堡的美国摄影师,与阿尔弗雷德·斯蒂格里茨一起开办了一个叫“291”的摄影画廊。二战之后担任纽约当代艺术美术馆 (MOMA) 摄影部主任。
11. 《人類一家》, 是由爱德华·斯泰肯策劃的一個大型攝影展覽,他从全世界征集的200万份稿件中,精选出68个国家273位作者的500幅作品,展覽在全世界範圍巡展,與此同時,出版了同名畫冊,使之成为世界摄影界的一 大“叙事诗”。
12. Petr Vaňous (1976年- ),捷克当代策展人,艺术历史学家,评论家。
14. Ceska Paralaxa,捷克摄影小组,成立于1995年。该小组的准则是用双透镜反射相机。
Avant-Garde and Contemporary
Czech Photography II
2015.07.23 - 09.13
In the spring of 2012 we introduced with the exhibition "Phantasm of a possible world - Czech Contemporary Photography" seven outstanding contemporary Czech photographers to the Chinese audience. The exhibition evoked a whirlwind, which has continued to this day. This time we again combed through the photographic history of the Czech Republic and will present the works of the 10 most important photographers from the Avant-Garde until today.
The Czech Republic has a long tradition of photography. It is indeed a photography-nation. Thinking of Avant-Garde art Germany, France and the Soviet Union are the key-players, but for Avant-Garde photography Czechoslovakia was one of the forerunners. The Avant-Garde photographers František Drtikol, Jaromír Funke, and Jaroslav Rössler developed a distinctive style in the time during the two world wars. This generation of photographers together with the photographers of Germany and the Soviet Union developed the concepts of New Objectivity, Constructivism, and Surrealism. They brought Czech photography world renown and influenced the after-war generation of photographers immensely. Since the 1980s even more marvelous photographic styles developed. The works of these fine photographers dating from the Avant-Garde until today are well-known in the whole world today.
First we want to introduce the three masters of photography: František Drtikol, Jaromír Funke, and Jaroslav Rössler. They have influenced so many photographers to this day.
František Drtikol (1883-1961) was one of the first generation photographers that practiced photography as an art form and was the first Czech photographer to claim international recognition. He believed that "One art, athousand forms", which is the reason for the various changes in style and topic in his work. Because of the new independence of Czechoslovakia after the First World War, a new wave of art photography took place. The co-owned photo studio of František Drtikol and Augustin Skarda became the cultural center and a meeting place of the elite. From then on Drtikol started to work with Art Noveau and Symbolism, but also included the concepts of Futurism, Expressionism, and Cubism, which stayed his interest for the rest of his life. Starting from 1923 he combined put bodies against geometric decorations and shadows. He then contrasted the body of the woman, the fate of the female and the female goddess (the female goddess was Calocagathia, the female personification of nobility). The Stalinist regime (1924- 1953) manifested more and more prohibitions; some of the most important artists were criticized for alleged formalism, which was considered incomprehensible to the masses and far from the ideology needs. They also didn’t allow nudes, still-lives, or experimental photography, because they thought it as "decadent". Therefore Drtikol’s nude photography was very daring for the time. The images of Drtikol often carry a certain symbolism, which already depicts his interest for Buddhism. His life and art have always been closely connected to theosophy, anthropology, and Buddhism. He later became a Buddhist monk and his spirituality was embodied in his works, until he completely stopped with photography.
Jaromír Funke (1896-1945) was very important for the Avant-garde photography. The Czech abstract- photography started in 1918-1939 and Prague became a center of Cubism. In the 1920s Funke still worked with pictorial landscape and it wasn’t until 1922 that he changed to constructivist compositions. In that year he founded together with Josef Sudek and Adolf Schneeberger the Czech Photographic Society. His simple still-lives show the possibility of making the reality abstract. Using everyday objects, he did not put the object itself in focus, but their reflection and shadow became of greater importance. While his works are mostly influenced by Constructivism and New Objectivity, he was later also one of the only Czech photographers making surrealistic works. The political changes again influenced the art practice. In between the two world wars the artists received a lot of international influence and contemporaneously developed Avant-Garde art.
Jaroslav Rössler (1902-1990) was far ahead of his contemporaries. He was together with Erwin Queenfeldt, Paul Strand, Alvin Langdon, Francis Pruguiere and Man Ray one of the pioneers of abstract photography. At the age of fifteen he started a working in the studio of František Drtikol as an assistant, where he obtained his technique and understanding of photography. He would later also influence his teacher with his strong formalistic and aesthetic believes. His early works are associated with Constructivism. Besides his abstract still lives, Rössler was one of the first photographers making light the center of his attention. The compositions with found everyday objects were influenced by Cubism. Worth noting is further, while the Dada movement started in Germany Karel Teige, the leader of the Czech Avant-garde association Devětsil invited him to join as the only professional photographer. Devětsil are known for their poetic collages, where photography was an important part.
In the Khrushchev era (1953 -1964), this newly promoted leader's speech at the Twentieth Congress of the Soviet Communist Party opened up a new era for modern art. The exhibition in 1958 "The Art of the Young Artists of Czechoslovakia" started the second bloom of experimental photography.
At the end of the 1950s Jan Saudek got a hold of catalogue of Steichen's exhibition "The Family Man". Inspired by the photographs he started his own tries at humanistic photography. Saudek's photography is characterized by his desires and dreams. Arranging the photos like documentary, he consequently connected to himself transforming them into symbols. But in the 50s Czechoslovakia was still in the Stalinist era. "These were years of nightmare" Saudek remembers this time. Only after the 60s one could feel a change. His photographs express the phenomenon of the 70s. In 1977 he started to hand-tint his black and white prints, which brought the images even further into a state of surrealist romanticism. Due to the laws in his home country, he showed his work in the USA and many other countries outside of Czech Republic and became rather famous. But wasn't before 1989, when the Soviet Union ended, that his works could be shown publicly. He today belongs to one of the internationally best-known photographers of Czech Republic. A movie about
his life has just been released this year.
Entering the 1980s the second rise of photography turned into a period characterized by its large amount of new talents emerging.
Miro Švolík’s (1960 - ) poetic works are outside of the mainstream. Compared with the very serious photography, his photography seems to have no sense of responsibility, and posses a post-modern playfulness. He places human figures on the ground in different arrangements and then adds silhouettes with watercolors and sand, which remind of the collages of the Avant-Garde. It started out as the final project as a student at the Department of Photography at FAMU, but then gave him international recognition. The Center of Photography, New York gave him the award for Best Young Photographer. His recent series are group portraits. Švolík arranges groups of people, e.g. employees of companies, school students, etc. using different modes of photography, but still staying in his distinctive mode of representation.
At the same time around 1986 Ivan Pinkava (1961- ) started to make staged portraits and still-lives. He dedicated a series of half-length portraits of people with their eyes closed, to his most admired authors and philosophers. His works deal with existential themes of the meaning of life and death and are highly influenced by European classical painting and sculpture, literature, Symbolism, as well as the Christianity and Mythology.
"Everything in Pinkava’s œuvre in some way touches upon the allegorical nature of time, its articulation and transformation. Here, time is put into the light of human experience. It is observed as a motif that creates space and myth, but is also destructive. Again from two angles – the immediate (personal) and the historical (from a distance) – Pinkava brings under control the consequences that the perception of time has for human consciousness and experience. Time is a space of interpretation and also a space of concealing (disguising) meanings. " Petr Vaňous
Jan Pohribný (1961- ) is another Czech photographer, that started in the early 1980s. He devoted himself to taking photographs of unusual landscapes. He captures timeless symbols of landscape. They exist somewhere between landscape art and traditional academic photography. He succeeds traditional landscape photography by painting with light. This way he combines the classical concepts of nature with that of a choreographer. The movements of the light reveal the place’ s energy of mother earth.
Václav Jirásek’s (1965 - ) photography gradually developed from a socialist realism into a photography defined by Christianity, Mysticism, and Romanticism. His work depict ruin, decay and death and the human response they provoke. Tomáš Pospěch said: " He inventively works the European tradition of pathos and the postmodern flirtation with the aesthetics of kitsch into the details of his staged photos."He was a leading figure in Bratrstvo (brotherhood), an organization that tried to challenge the undefined status quo of the politics. Jirasek has been called the most exquisite photographer of Czech Republic.
Vojtěch V. Sláma’s (1974 - ) inherent need is travelling. He travels a lot; whether it is Quebec, India or Paris; for the author it is always a unique opportunity to acquire a new view of well-thought-out things, to chase away routine and to find a fresh desire for further production. His self-reflexive photos are like diaries. Vojtěch transports the intimacy of his own life and family and friends circle through his photography. They are like little glimpse of a special moment in his life. He graduated from the Institute of Creative Photography in 2009. Vojtěch is also cofounder of the photo group "Ceska Paralaxa" , where also his use of the double-lens reflex camera originates. It is the paramount tool for his photography until today, even though it is not limited to it.
Tereza Vlčková (1983 - ) is one of the most significant photography artists of the young artistic scene not only on the Czech soil – also internationally. Her work exceeds boundaries of the photographic medium and her photographs are in contact with a broader artistic context. The authoress creates within the series of color photographs, which powerfully attack the viewer not only by their formal and technical refinement, but also by their mysteriously tuned content brightening up the inner self and raising disturbing questions. Her best- known series to date include A Perfect Day, Elise... (2007), Two (2007-2008), and Mirrors Inside (2008-2009).
She toys with images of a girl or a woman being in these series, planting them into a dreamlike landscape environment. She ingeniously stages every image. Her creative work is often consciously testing the borders of the "beauty". She is constantly looking for new possibilities and paths for her visions.
Their predecessors have influenced the younger generation of photographers immensely. Every photograph incorporates the experiences of the photographers from before and pays tribute to them.
At this point I want to thank Jan Pohribný and Magdalena Pohribna. If it wasn’t for their selfless help the exhibitions in 2012 and 2015 would have not been possible. We first met at the International Photography Festival in Seoul in 2010. With our endless efforts we build a bridge of photography between Czech Republic and China. We introduced more and more Czech masters of photography to a Chinese audience, and at the same time we let Czech readers get to know some outstanding Chinese photographers.
Hua Er
Shenzhen OCT 2nd July 2015
1. AUGUSTIN SKARDA ( 1871 - 1937 ), Czech photographer. Opened together with Drtikol a photography studio and worked with him very closely.
2. JOSEF SUDEK (1896 -1976) was a modernist photographer. After WWI he studied under Jaromir Funke. Worked in a romantic Pictorialist style.. He was known as "the Poet of Prague".
3. ADOLF SCHNEEBERGER (1897 - 1977 ) studied engineering and photography at the Czech Technical University in Prague, 1914. Both co-founded the Czech Photographic Society with Funke.
4. ERWIN QUEENFELDT (1869 - 1949) was a German photography engineer, photographer and Inventor. He was the director of the photography school “ Rheinische Lehr - und Versuchsanstalt für Photographie” (Institute of Photography at the Rhein) 1901-1923. He was an important photographer of the beginning of the 20th century and is highly regarded by collectors.
5. PAUL STRAND (1890 - 1976) was an American modernist photographer and filmmaker that established photography as an art form in the 20th century. He is best known for his modernist photography of New York City.
6. ALVIN LANGDON COBURN (1882 - 1966) was an American photographer, who was an important protagonist for the development of American Pictorialism. He made some of the first completely abstract photographs. In he was called “ the greatest photographer in the world”, Coburn was 24 at the time.
7. FRANCIS PRUGUIERE (1879 - 1945) was an American photographer, sculptor, painter and filmmaker. His series of the earthquake in San Francisco in 1906 is his most famous.
8. MAY RAY (1890 - 1979) was an American visual artist who spent most of his career in France. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealist movements. He produced major works in a variety of media but considered himself a painter above all, but he was best known for his photography. Man Ray is also noted for his work with photograms, which he called "rayographs" in reference to himself.
9. KAREL TEIGE (1900 - 1951) was a major figure in the Czech Avant-Garde movement. He was a graphic artist, photographer, and typographer. With endless effort he introduced modern art to Prague through exhibitions, a magazine, and events.
10. EDWARD STEICHEN (1897-1973), Luxembourgian American photographer. He founded together with Alfred Steglitz the gallery 291. After WW II he was head of the Photography Department of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) New York.
11. "The Family Man", Steichen collected 2 million documents from all over the world and chose 273 people from 68 contries. 500 photos then were published in a catalogue. It became a ballad to the world of photography.
12. PETR VAŇOUS (1976 - ), Czech contemporary curator, art historian and art critic. Speicalized in Czech photography.
13. TOMÁŠ POSPĚCH (1974 - ) is Czech art historian, photographer, artist, independent curator and teacher.
14. CESKA PARALAXA, Czech photo group founded in 1995, using the double-lens 6 × 6 cm reflex camera.