A Czech photographer, born in 1934, Jan Svoboda has worked very much alone with his own environment. While acknowledging the mastery of Sudek as do all contemporary Czechoslovakian photographers one feels in the case of Svoboda that it is as much for the intense and personal way in which Sudek worked that he admires him, as for the images. He has certainly been extremely selective in the way in which his work has evolved, becoming always more pure, giving himself a continually narrowing range of tones through which to work and always exploring the flattening effect of light and the two dimensional quality of photography.
His work stems from 'art povera', and the minimal art of the sixties. His desire to simplify while retaining the inherent mystery in his photography, means that his images repay close study and can be returned to time and time again with increasing satisfaction. The subject is photography itself, so that while the objects portrayed can sometimes be imbued with a symbolic meaning this is not their primary purpose.
These tables, walls, windows and heaps of salt have been selected primarily for the way in which they absorb and reflect light. Their relationship to background is also important, with the delineation often so subtle that the planes begin to merge. This is not reality, everything within the frame is of equal importance and the emphasis is laid on the timelessness of the photograph as an object rather than the capturing of any single moment. Thus the consistancy of light, and the photographs are an expression of this very personal concept.
This exhibition has been selected by Antonin Dufek, Keeper of Photography and the Moravská Museum, Brno who has also written an excellent introduction to the work in his catalogue for the show.
We have been able to arrange the exhibition through the kind co-operation of the Czech Ministry of Culture and the Embassy here in London and Mr Dufek will be in London at the time of the opening here, when he will also give a talk on Contemporary Photography in Czechoslovakia.
Written by Sue Davies, 1982
For further information on this and past exhibitions, visit our Archive and Study Room.
