Czech Photographic Avant-Garde 1918-1948 Vladimir Birgus, Editor / MIT Press, 2002
by Allan Graubard
From the vantage of 2002, we can all too easily look back at the artistic history of the first half of the 20th century in Czechoslovakia with the belief that most, if not all, major names and works are or have been appreciated. In doing so, we may perhaps forget that it was not until 1989, with the fall of the Communist regime, that the country’s cultural isolation finally ended.
Add here the repression previously endured during the Nazi era, and the trajectory of Czech art throws into focus brilliant developments in photography, many of which are new to us, now decades distant.
Prague, of course, was and is the cultural center, and during the years 1918-1948 also became, after Paris, an essential matrix for some of the most compelling artistic developments in Europe as a whole.
The history of this phenomenon in photography is the subject of a handsome, well-illustrated book, Czech Photographic Avant-Garde 1918-1948, recently published by MIT Press.
The photographers, or those who eschewed the name but worked with photographs, and the groups they founded, or more simply avoided, along with their precursors, may find some recognition among American readers: Vratislav Nezval, Karl Tiege, Jindoich Styrsky, Toyen, Frantisek Dritkol, Jaromir Funke, Josef Sudek; Cubism, Dada, Purism, Poetism, Constructivism, Bauhaus, abstraction, and surrealism.
At the same time, it is also striking that photographers within the various avant-garde groups in Czechoslovakia held a special place, their work spurring pivotal moments and discoveries.
Surrealism is arguably the most important movement of expression within Czechoslovakia during the 20th century. Styrsky’s genial recognition here signals both the place and power of photography within surrealism internationally: "In no other country does such an amount and such an adventure in surrealist photography exist as in Czechoslovakia."
Initially inspired by Eugene Atget and Man Ray, Czech surrealist photographers were unrelenting in their pursuit of marvelous and disquieting images. Whether by documenting chance encounters on the street, shooting arranged photos, or working on the medium itself by photogram, photo collage, melted emulsion, melted negatives, or application of chemicals to photographic paper, an influential dialogue emerged that is with us today. The unknown relationships that chance throws our way, or that desire and anxiety reveal to us, continue to chart the course of our cultural evolution.
Also of note is the vibrant relationships established between avant-garde photographers, poets, painters, book designers, architects, film and theater directors, choreographers and sculptors, and those whose cumulative effect on society was significant.
Yes, we are waking up to the genius of Czech artistic culture. And along with the major exhibitions and catalogues of the 1990s, including "Czech Modernism" at the Brooklyn Museum of Art and the National Institute of Design, and smaller but equally poignant exhibitions of Czech surrealist photographers at Gallery Ubu, New York, is this book that MIT Press has published.
