Art and exhibition Hall at the Federal Republic of Germany, Bonn
An interview with exhibition curator Vladimír Birgus
A comprehensive retrospective about the history of Czech photography in the 20th century will be on view at the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn until the 26th of July. Curated by photography professor Vladimír Birgus and by Jan Mlčoch, curator of the Photography Collection of the Museum of Decorative Arts, Prague, the show provides an exhaustive insight to 100 years of photographic creation by means of a gigantesque narrative that features a total of 197 artists—179 male and 18 female photographers.
The exhibition responds to the fundamental premise of “re-inscribing” the Czech production within the panorama of international photography while propagating its significance as one of the richest photographic legacies in Europe. And it does so by full right. For Czech photography remains to our days relatively unknown to the wider audience and underrated within the art market. There are, of course, specific names such as Frantisek Drtikol, Josef Sudek or Jan Saudek, who have attracted considerable international attention, but, in any case, they are regarded as exceptional cases, not in the least indicative of any broader fine art photography milieu, as if this latter had never existed.
On the periphery of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; on the periphery of the Paris and Berlin avant-gardes as a young democracy in the years between the two world wars; on the periphery of the world during the four decades of Communist protectionism: when it comes to the Bohemian Lands and their contribution to modern culture, all that seems to remain is the term “periphery”, mainly referring to a “second-class” quality. The existent photography theory has failed to unveil that, what lies behind the names of Drtikol, Sudek, Saudek, Koudelka, Funke and many others, is if not the richest certainly the most versatile, idiosyncratic and vibrant photographic tradition in Central and Eastern Europe —all this despite all the sufferings and shortcomings that have marked its historical fate.
From Pictorialism to Poetism and abstract photography, from social reportage to imaginative surreal photography and collage, from symbolist female portraits to the staged tableaux of nudes, Czech photography has always preserved at its core an alliance with experimentation, an autonomy of voice and above all, a tender relation with its apparatus, as if thinking, feeling and seeing “photographically” derived from its heart. Contrary to what one might expect from autodidactic photographers wandering in the Bohemian hills and family studios, capturing the quiet everyday life in remote provincial towns, Czech photography has never been a passive receptor of external influences, dictated eloquently by the world's avant-gardes. It has rather been a melting pot of inventiveness, reworking through the camera lens its material and ideological self-confinement into what constitutes the allegorical par excellence function of the photographic sign. One can tell that it is the Bohemian gaze behind the special aura the pictures of the Czech masters possess, and not any other. From the conventional portrait-studio to the most singular fine-art photographers, the elements in common are the lyricism of the gaze, the faith to the device, and a melancholic self-awareness.
As photographic writing proliferates, Czech photography emerges out of the shadow into the spotlight of attention, recompensing for the broken opportunities of the past. This exhibition offers the unique opportunity to recover photographers from oblivion, discover new talents, and above all pose new questions from a fresh perspective. Just a few days before the opening of the retrospective, Eyemazing had the opportunity of going through these issues with curator Vladimír Birgus. In the aftermath of this utterly stimulating conversation that follows below, it is left upon the show and its images to inspire…
Natasha Christia: 450 original prints and 197 photographers! Is this the first time such an extensive retrospective show on Czech photography takes place abroad or is it my impression?
Vladimír Birgus: Indeed, during the forty years of the Communist regime, little Czech photography appeared internationally. During the past two decades, however, a number of large exhibitions of Czech photography have been held in important galleries and museums, and at various festivals. Czech photography became the centre of attention particularly just before the fall of the Berlin Wall in late 1989. As early as 1990 Miroslav Vojtěchovský and I managed to organize the exhibition “Czechoslovak Photography of the Present”, which premiered in Cologne, before moving on to eight more European and two American cities. In the same year, Czech photography also predominated at the festivals in Arles and Houston. Still, the world’s interest in Central and Eastern European art was, with the exception of Russia, only short-lived, although various periods of Czech photography managed to get displayed at several exhibitions, the largest of them being “The Czech Photographic Avant-garde, 1918–1948”, held in Barcelona, Paris, Lausanne, Prague, and Munich. None of them, however, had yet taken in the whole twentieth century.
NC: How was the idea for this project then born? How did you eventually end up working together with Jan Mlčoch? What has either one of you contributed to the show?
VB: Mlčoch and I began to organise an exhibition on the history of Czech photography in Prague six years ago. When its three parts premiered simultaneously at three different exhibition halls in Prague in 2005, we presented about 1,300 photographs, including all the main trends and photographers from the Bohemian Lands between 1900 and 2000. We worked as a team in the organisation of the whole exhibition, going through many public and private collections and archives, and visiting dozens of photographers. We made the final selection together too—after many discussions of course—and wrote the articles for the panels and the exhibition guide. Now the exhibition is being shown again in the Art and Exhibition Hall of the German Federal Republic, Bonn. Even though the number of the exhibited photos has considerably been reduced, this is so far the largest foreign exhibition of Czech photography…
NC: The show is unquestionably impressively extensive… To my understanding, it attempts a chronological journey through various historical phases and movements of the Czech photography. Could you describe, in a few words, its highlights and the criteria you have applied at the moment of constructing its narrative?
VB: During the selection process we put the emphasis on works that are important in the international context. That’s why a great deal of space at the exhibition is devoted to the classics of modern Czech photography and the documentary photographs of Josef Koudelka, Jindřich Štreit, and Antonín Kratochvíl. We wanted, however, to also show some chapters of the history of photography in the Bohemian Lands, which had received little attention till now. Among them, for instance, is the work of German photographers from the Bohemian Lands. Did you know that more than three million Germans lived in Czechoslovakia between the two world wars, either born or sought asylum there from Hitler’s regime? It was during his five years in Czechoslovakia, for example, that John Heartfield made his most important political photomontages and worked for a number of Czech periodicals and publishing houses. Another chapter is the fabricated propagandistic photographs in the style of Socialist Realism from the worst years of the Communist regime in the early 1950s.
NC: Czech photography is then much more heterogeneous than expected! It is striking though that any reference to this diversity is still absent from photo-books related with the Czech legacy. What I mean here is that when referring to the 20th century avant-gardes, most books place Prague and Czech photography on the periphery of the artistic metropolises of Paris and Berlin, while also excluding them from the post-war context. Still, the argument of this show seems to revolve around the idea that the Czech photography’s influence on German and American photography has been profound. What does this position imply: A new writing of history?
VB: Not at all! This would be a misunderstanding of our claims. In no case do we mean to suggest here that the works of the Czech Avant-garde photographers Jaroslav Rössler, Jaromír Funke, or Václav Zykmund had a decisive impact on German or American photography. What my colleagues and I wish to show instead is that in many cases Czech photographers did not merely copy French, German, or Russian models, but were amongst those involved in the forward-looking trends on a worldwide scale. Take, for instance, Jaroslav Rössler. He was making abstract and Constructivist photographs as early as 1923, at a time when, for example, Rodchenko was not even taking photographs yet. Or Zykmund, who was making art nudes as early as the second half of the 1930s, anticipating many of the elements of later happenings, performance and body art. The fact that we do not find their works—or even the works of František Drtikol and Josef Sudek—mentioned in earlier American or west European histories of photography is mainly due to the isolation of Czechoslovakia during the forty years of the Communist regime. During that time it was forgotten that Prague was not on the periphery of the arts but a centre of Cubism and Surrealism.
NC: With more or less 200 participating photographers, should we then expect this exhibition to provide the opportunity of discovering old and new names, and if so, can you give us a short account of interesting cases?
VB: We would be delighted if the exhibition and the 360-page German catalogue, which will later be published in English as well, helped towards that! Simply the fact that the Art and Exhibition Hall of the German Federal Republic, Bonn, one of the most attended institutions of its kind in Europe, included our exhibition in its program together with a Modigliani retrospective or exhibitions of modern art masters from the Kunstmuseum Winterthur, is a great success! As far as old and new discoveries are concerned, it is significant that whereas the Czech Avant-garde and, partly, contemporary photography are gradually managing to make their way onto the international scene, Czech documentary photography of the 1940s or 1960s remains almost unknown.
NC: Even so, it has become more than evident that photography is deeply rooted in the Bohemian Lands. What is the cause for it? Why does any analogous tradition not exist, for example, in neighbouring countries such as Poland or Hungary?
VB: Well, to be fair, Hungary can boast a number of important photographers, who achieved fame in exile —like André Kertész, Martin Munkácsi, Brassaï, and Robert Capa. Little is known today about the other excellent photographers who remained in their native land. That’s mainly because there are few books about Hungarian photography in English, German, or French. On the other hand, with the exception of Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Poland had no important photographers in the 1920s and 1930s, yet a number of high-quality photomontages were made there. Fortunately, the world is discovering them —though, very slowly.
NC: Judging from the title of the show, “Czech photography in the 20th century”, you have chosen to expand your research chronologically until 2000. Why is the 19th century excluded?
VB: From the beginning of the project, we counted on it comprising works from the 20th century only. The fact that Czech photography in the 19th century had no photographers on a par with Nadar or Cameron also played a role. The first Czech photographer of international importance was Drtikol. Still, to consider all the important trends of a hundred years is quite enough.
NC: Coming to the present, how would you describe the generation of contemporary Czech photographers? What links them with the past? How do they position themselves within the international photography arena?
VB: Contemporary Czech photography does not have any one dominant trend. Rather, it comprises a number of coexisting trends ranging from a distinctly subjective conception of the new documentary photography to the inventive use of digital manipulation. Photography has left its ghetto to become an important part of the visual arts. An increasing number of artists are devoting themselves to it, and it is now part of many important institutions. Whereas during the Communist regime Czech photographers worked in definite isolation, today’s young photographers are reacting quickly to current trends of the international art scene. Fortunately, many of them have their own styles and a good deal of imagination. It remains hard for them, however, to break into the international scene. In the Czech Republic the institutional support for photography is far less than, say, in the Netherlands, France, or Germany. Also art from the post-Communist countries of central Europe is not exactly at the centre of international interest right now, which is evident, for example, from the programs of the Mois de la Photo, Paris, and the Rencontres d’Arles, where it appears as if Czech photography had no one but Koudelka. Recently, however, some young Czech photographers have enjoyed considerable success, like Dita Pepe and also Tereza Vlčková, who won this year’s Prix BMW at the “Lyon Septembre de la photographie”. Last year, Jitka Hanzlová, a Czech photographer living in Germany, won the 2007 BMW Paris Photo Prize.
NC: How strong is the presence of photography in the Czech society in general? Is it still easy today to encounter small “photographic treasures” in flea markets?
VB: Photography has a far stronger position in Czech art today than it ever had. Courses are offered at six universities and art schools. But many institutions —including the National Gallery in Prague—, which do not have a specialized collection of photography, still continue to underestimate photography. On the other hand, I regret to inform you that the chance of finding a rare Drtikol or Sudek photograph at a flea market today is quite small! They long ago ended up in various museums or private collections, and when they do show up for auction in Prague, they are sometimes more expensive than in New York!
NC: Yes, but apart from the Drtikols and the Sudeks, many exceptionally wonderful vintage prints from the fifties and sixties are still auctioned in very accessible prices! Being on the front line of the promotion of Czech photography since the early nineties, you must have seen many changes taking place before your eyes, mainly as far as its inception by collectors and the market is concerned. What have the greatest achievements been and what is left to do according to your point of view?
VB: Czech photography is enjoying incomparably greater renown today than two decades ago. That is evinced not only in its being part of the collections of leading museums, but also in the prices it fetches on the market. You are right! While some of Drtikol's nudes or Sudek's still lifes are now being sold for tens of thousands of euros or dollars (one small Drtikol nude recently fetched more than $300,000 at Sotheby’s, New York), vintage prints by many good but still internationally unknown Czech photographers from the 1950s and 1960s can still be obtained for a couple of hundred euros! And histories of world photography that fail to mention even Sudek are still being published! Czech photography still has a long way to go before it achieves full international recognition.
Text by Natasha Christia
Czech Photography in the 20th Century
Exhibition through July 26
Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bonn
Curators: Dr. phil. Vladimír Birgus and Jan Mlčoch
Published in Eyemazing 02/2009
An interview with exhibition curator Vladimír Birgus
A comprehensive retrospective about the history of Czech photography in the 20th century will be on view at the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn until the 26th of July. Curated by photography professor Vladimír Birgus and by Jan Mlčoch, curator of the Photography Collection of the Museum of Decorative Arts, Prague, the show provides an exhaustive insight to 100 years of photographic creation by means of a gigantesque narrative that features a total of 197 artists—179 male and 18 female photographers.
The exhibition responds to the fundamental premise of “re-inscribing” the Czech production within the panorama of international photography while propagating its significance as one of the richest photographic legacies in Europe. And it does so by full right. For Czech photography remains to our days relatively unknown to the wider audience and underrated within the art market. There are, of course, specific names such as Frantisek Drtikol, Josef Sudek or Jan Saudek, who have attracted considerable international attention, but, in any case, they are regarded as exceptional cases, not in the least indicative of any broader fine art photography milieu, as if this latter had never existed.
On the periphery of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; on the periphery of the Paris and Berlin avant-gardes as a young democracy in the years between the two world wars; on the periphery of the world during the four decades of Communist protectionism: when it comes to the Bohemian Lands and their contribution to modern culture, all that seems to remain is the term “periphery”, mainly referring to a “second-class” quality. The existent photography theory has failed to unveil that, what lies behind the names of Drtikol, Sudek, Saudek, Koudelka, Funke and many others, is if not the richest certainly the most versatile, idiosyncratic and vibrant photographic tradition in Central and Eastern Europe —all this despite all the sufferings and shortcomings that have marked its historical fate.
From Pictorialism to Poetism and abstract photography, from social reportage to imaginative surreal photography and collage, from symbolist female portraits to the staged tableaux of nudes, Czech photography has always preserved at its core an alliance with experimentation, an autonomy of voice and above all, a tender relation with its apparatus, as if thinking, feeling and seeing “photographically” derived from its heart. Contrary to what one might expect from autodidactic photographers wandering in the Bohemian hills and family studios, capturing the quiet everyday life in remote provincial towns, Czech photography has never been a passive receptor of external influences, dictated eloquently by the world's avant-gardes. It has rather been a melting pot of inventiveness, reworking through the camera lens its material and ideological self-confinement into what constitutes the allegorical par excellence function of the photographic sign. One can tell that it is the Bohemian gaze behind the special aura the pictures of the Czech masters possess, and not any other. From the conventional portrait-studio to the most singular fine-art photographers, the elements in common are the lyricism of the gaze, the faith to the device, and a melancholic self-awareness.
As photographic writing proliferates, Czech photography emerges out of the shadow into the spotlight of attention, recompensing for the broken opportunities of the past. This exhibition offers the unique opportunity to recover photographers from oblivion, discover new talents, and above all pose new questions from a fresh perspective. Just a few days before the opening of the retrospective, Eyemazing had the opportunity of going through these issues with curator Vladimír Birgus. In the aftermath of this utterly stimulating conversation that follows below, it is left upon the show and its images to inspire…
Natasha Christia: 450 original prints and 197 photographers! Is this the first time such an extensive retrospective show on Czech photography takes place abroad or is it my impression?
Vladimír Birgus: Indeed, during the forty years of the Communist regime, little Czech photography appeared internationally. During the past two decades, however, a number of large exhibitions of Czech photography have been held in important galleries and museums, and at various festivals. Czech photography became the centre of attention particularly just before the fall of the Berlin Wall in late 1989. As early as 1990 Miroslav Vojtěchovský and I managed to organize the exhibition “Czechoslovak Photography of the Present”, which premiered in Cologne, before moving on to eight more European and two American cities. In the same year, Czech photography also predominated at the festivals in Arles and Houston. Still, the world’s interest in Central and Eastern European art was, with the exception of Russia, only short-lived, although various periods of Czech photography managed to get displayed at several exhibitions, the largest of them being “The Czech Photographic Avant-garde, 1918–1948”, held in Barcelona, Paris, Lausanne, Prague, and Munich. None of them, however, had yet taken in the whole twentieth century.
NC: How was the idea for this project then born? How did you eventually end up working together with Jan Mlčoch? What has either one of you contributed to the show?
VB: Mlčoch and I began to organise an exhibition on the history of Czech photography in Prague six years ago. When its three parts premiered simultaneously at three different exhibition halls in Prague in 2005, we presented about 1,300 photographs, including all the main trends and photographers from the Bohemian Lands between 1900 and 2000. We worked as a team in the organisation of the whole exhibition, going through many public and private collections and archives, and visiting dozens of photographers. We made the final selection together too—after many discussions of course—and wrote the articles for the panels and the exhibition guide. Now the exhibition is being shown again in the Art and Exhibition Hall of the German Federal Republic, Bonn. Even though the number of the exhibited photos has considerably been reduced, this is so far the largest foreign exhibition of Czech photography…
NC: The show is unquestionably impressively extensive… To my understanding, it attempts a chronological journey through various historical phases and movements of the Czech photography. Could you describe, in a few words, its highlights and the criteria you have applied at the moment of constructing its narrative?
VB: During the selection process we put the emphasis on works that are important in the international context. That’s why a great deal of space at the exhibition is devoted to the classics of modern Czech photography and the documentary photographs of Josef Koudelka, Jindřich Štreit, and Antonín Kratochvíl. We wanted, however, to also show some chapters of the history of photography in the Bohemian Lands, which had received little attention till now. Among them, for instance, is the work of German photographers from the Bohemian Lands. Did you know that more than three million Germans lived in Czechoslovakia between the two world wars, either born or sought asylum there from Hitler’s regime? It was during his five years in Czechoslovakia, for example, that John Heartfield made his most important political photomontages and worked for a number of Czech periodicals and publishing houses. Another chapter is the fabricated propagandistic photographs in the style of Socialist Realism from the worst years of the Communist regime in the early 1950s.
NC: Czech photography is then much more heterogeneous than expected! It is striking though that any reference to this diversity is still absent from photo-books related with the Czech legacy. What I mean here is that when referring to the 20th century avant-gardes, most books place Prague and Czech photography on the periphery of the artistic metropolises of Paris and Berlin, while also excluding them from the post-war context. Still, the argument of this show seems to revolve around the idea that the Czech photography’s influence on German and American photography has been profound. What does this position imply: A new writing of history?
VB: Not at all! This would be a misunderstanding of our claims. In no case do we mean to suggest here that the works of the Czech Avant-garde photographers Jaroslav Rössler, Jaromír Funke, or Václav Zykmund had a decisive impact on German or American photography. What my colleagues and I wish to show instead is that in many cases Czech photographers did not merely copy French, German, or Russian models, but were amongst those involved in the forward-looking trends on a worldwide scale. Take, for instance, Jaroslav Rössler. He was making abstract and Constructivist photographs as early as 1923, at a time when, for example, Rodchenko was not even taking photographs yet. Or Zykmund, who was making art nudes as early as the second half of the 1930s, anticipating many of the elements of later happenings, performance and body art. The fact that we do not find their works—or even the works of František Drtikol and Josef Sudek—mentioned in earlier American or west European histories of photography is mainly due to the isolation of Czechoslovakia during the forty years of the Communist regime. During that time it was forgotten that Prague was not on the periphery of the arts but a centre of Cubism and Surrealism.
NC: With more or less 200 participating photographers, should we then expect this exhibition to provide the opportunity of discovering old and new names, and if so, can you give us a short account of interesting cases?
VB: We would be delighted if the exhibition and the 360-page German catalogue, which will later be published in English as well, helped towards that! Simply the fact that the Art and Exhibition Hall of the German Federal Republic, Bonn, one of the most attended institutions of its kind in Europe, included our exhibition in its program together with a Modigliani retrospective or exhibitions of modern art masters from the Kunstmuseum Winterthur, is a great success! As far as old and new discoveries are concerned, it is significant that whereas the Czech Avant-garde and, partly, contemporary photography are gradually managing to make their way onto the international scene, Czech documentary photography of the 1940s or 1960s remains almost unknown.
NC: Even so, it has become more than evident that photography is deeply rooted in the Bohemian Lands. What is the cause for it? Why does any analogous tradition not exist, for example, in neighbouring countries such as Poland or Hungary?
VB: Well, to be fair, Hungary can boast a number of important photographers, who achieved fame in exile —like André Kertész, Martin Munkácsi, Brassaï, and Robert Capa. Little is known today about the other excellent photographers who remained in their native land. That’s mainly because there are few books about Hungarian photography in English, German, or French. On the other hand, with the exception of Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Poland had no important photographers in the 1920s and 1930s, yet a number of high-quality photomontages were made there. Fortunately, the world is discovering them —though, very slowly.
NC: Judging from the title of the show, “Czech photography in the 20th century”, you have chosen to expand your research chronologically until 2000. Why is the 19th century excluded?
VB: From the beginning of the project, we counted on it comprising works from the 20th century only. The fact that Czech photography in the 19th century had no photographers on a par with Nadar or Cameron also played a role. The first Czech photographer of international importance was Drtikol. Still, to consider all the important trends of a hundred years is quite enough.
NC: Coming to the present, how would you describe the generation of contemporary Czech photographers? What links them with the past? How do they position themselves within the international photography arena?
VB: Contemporary Czech photography does not have any one dominant trend. Rather, it comprises a number of coexisting trends ranging from a distinctly subjective conception of the new documentary photography to the inventive use of digital manipulation. Photography has left its ghetto to become an important part of the visual arts. An increasing number of artists are devoting themselves to it, and it is now part of many important institutions. Whereas during the Communist regime Czech photographers worked in definite isolation, today’s young photographers are reacting quickly to current trends of the international art scene. Fortunately, many of them have their own styles and a good deal of imagination. It remains hard for them, however, to break into the international scene. In the Czech Republic the institutional support for photography is far less than, say, in the Netherlands, France, or Germany. Also art from the post-Communist countries of central Europe is not exactly at the centre of international interest right now, which is evident, for example, from the programs of the Mois de la Photo, Paris, and the Rencontres d’Arles, where it appears as if Czech photography had no one but Koudelka. Recently, however, some young Czech photographers have enjoyed considerable success, like Dita Pepe and also Tereza Vlčková, who won this year’s Prix BMW at the “Lyon Septembre de la photographie”. Last year, Jitka Hanzlová, a Czech photographer living in Germany, won the 2007 BMW Paris Photo Prize.
NC: How strong is the presence of photography in the Czech society in general? Is it still easy today to encounter small “photographic treasures” in flea markets?
VB: Photography has a far stronger position in Czech art today than it ever had. Courses are offered at six universities and art schools. But many institutions —including the National Gallery in Prague—, which do not have a specialized collection of photography, still continue to underestimate photography. On the other hand, I regret to inform you that the chance of finding a rare Drtikol or Sudek photograph at a flea market today is quite small! They long ago ended up in various museums or private collections, and when they do show up for auction in Prague, they are sometimes more expensive than in New York!
NC: Yes, but apart from the Drtikols and the Sudeks, many exceptionally wonderful vintage prints from the fifties and sixties are still auctioned in very accessible prices! Being on the front line of the promotion of Czech photography since the early nineties, you must have seen many changes taking place before your eyes, mainly as far as its inception by collectors and the market is concerned. What have the greatest achievements been and what is left to do according to your point of view?
VB: Czech photography is enjoying incomparably greater renown today than two decades ago. That is evinced not only in its being part of the collections of leading museums, but also in the prices it fetches on the market. You are right! While some of Drtikol's nudes or Sudek's still lifes are now being sold for tens of thousands of euros or dollars (one small Drtikol nude recently fetched more than $300,000 at Sotheby’s, New York), vintage prints by many good but still internationally unknown Czech photographers from the 1950s and 1960s can still be obtained for a couple of hundred euros! And histories of world photography that fail to mention even Sudek are still being published! Czech photography still has a long way to go before it achieves full international recognition.
Text by Natasha Christia
Czech Photography in the 20th Century
Exhibition through July 26
Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bonn
Curators: Dr. phil. Vladimír Birgus and Jan Mlčoch
Published in Eyemazing 02/2009
