Ceska Fotografie 90. Let/Czech Photography of the 1990s

Rating:
Summary: Intriguing, But Has a Few Glitches
Review: "Czech Photography of the 1990s" was produced in conjunction with a 1999 exhibition at the Chicago Cultural Center organized with the Prague House of Photography. In Czech and English, it contains an Introduction; an OK essay "Photography at the Beginning of a New Epoch..."; an overly-detailed "Chronology of Czech Photography 1990-1998"; and an informative essay "Certainty and Searching in Contemporary Czech Photography." These are followed by almost 150 pages containing a brief biography of and reproductions of several works by each of the 33 featured photographers. Most of the photographs are in black and white, but about a dozen are in color, and all are well reproduced and striking. I would characterize three quarters of the photos as "artistic" and one quarter as "documentary," although there is some overlap between the two categories. The book concludes with a bibliography and notes on the curators (only in Czech).

I found the book a little frustrating because the English translations are somewhat difficult to read and because there is no table of contents or index. Here are the page numbers for the bios and works of the featured photographers: Pavel Banka 182-187; Jaroslav Barta 192-195; Michaela Brachtlova 152-155; Veronika Bromova 138-141; Karel Cudlin 90-93; Jiri David 116-119; Jiri Hanke 120-123; Pavel Hecko 106-109; Bohdan Holomicek 66-69; Lukas Jasansky and Martin Polak 172-175; Vaclav Jirasek 162-165; Viktor Kolar 80-85; Josef Koudelka 59-65; Antonin Kratochvil 94-97; Jaroslav Kucera 70-73; Ales Kunes 180-183; Zdenek Lhotak 124-127; Michal Macku 156-161; Pavel Mara 142-145; Tomki Nemec 98-101; Ivan Pinkava 110-115; Vaclav Podesat 86-89; Jan Pohribny 128-131; Rudo Prekop 188-191; Jaroslav Rajzik 200-203; Jan Reich 196-199; Jan Saudek 132-137; Robert Silverio 176-179; Tono Stano 146-151; Igor Sefr 102-105; Jindrich Streit 74-79; and Miro Svolik 166-171.

Some 1990s "thumbnail" photos accompanying the essays at the beginning of the book seemed artistically fascinating, especially those by Roman Sejkot (pp.10, 51), Tomas Pospech (p.34), Jaroslav Malik (p.37), Petr Weigl (p.48), and Jan Splichal (p.56). It's unfortunate that the book could not devote more space to these five artists.

Despite the glitches mentioned above, the book gives a glimpse into the work of many great contemporary Czech photographers. Buy it from Amazon.com!