National Gallery Prague, Kinský Palace, Dec 17, 2008 – Feb 8, 2009
The Czech National Gallery is showing a photo exhibition, which is a reprise of an Austrian exhibition showed earlier last year in Vienna. The works on show are all taken from Bank Austria’s collection of photography. The show consists of a representative selection of different historical periods and photographic schools. It’s like walking through a smaller copy of the photographic universe, starting from photography’s birth.
With such an array of famous names and images, one can hardly go wrong. In some way this can be attributed to the fact that it’s a bank’s collection, so only things of ‘real’, stable value, proven by time, are on stock here. This of course also means that there is less “surprises” for the art history educated visitor. Anyway, besides some surprises for everyone, the strongest impression comes from the historical perspective and the almost palpable aura emanating from the displayed masterpieces.
I personally was most touched by the very early works on display – Muybridge, Fox Talbot and alike. Most of us have seen these authors’ images a hundred times in different art or history related publications, yet seeing them in real in front of you is always a different experience. Below you can see a couple of photos which were on display. The historical moment – or period – in time when photography came into existence was a crucial turning point for visual culture. It can be also seen as a final outcome of the struggle of preceding one hundred years – a struggle for a new way of relating to reality and of understanding both our inner and outer worlds. These images signalled the coming of a new era, not only visual, but also social, technological, economical… One series of photos of display explicitly depicts the ‘new era’ of relating to the world: Duchenne’s studies of face with the use of electrodes (Image above). The ‘scientific’ means used to s(t)imulate facial expressions (representing human inner ‘emotions’) depicts the interrelations of knowledge and power, which later verbalized in Foucault’s “society of control”.
Each image in this show is loaded with social and historical connotations of a similar kind as the one mentioned above. Different images refer to different historical contexts, to different modes of vision, to different social attitudes and different political standpoints.
A brief note about the other photos below. There is a sequential image done by Muybridge and a simple fern “photogram” from 1844 by Fox Talbot. Then there are two photo-collages by Herbert Bayer, which were made more than hundred years later. Indeed, they reflect a totally different visual experience then the previously mentioned author. Last a photo of Diane Arbus which is also on the ‘contemporary’ end of the exhibition. Something you don’t see on the pictures yet that is worth mentioning is a couple of contemporary Austrian artists photos from 1970’s and 80’s: Arnulf Rainer, Valie Export and alike.
I could go on and on writing about this show. Yet let me finish here. I can really recommend this exhibition to anyone with at least some interest in art and history and our society in general. For all of you in Prague, there is still a chance until 8th of February 2009, and then I guess the exhibition is moving some other place. This is a rare bright spot in the otherwise rather bleak Czech National Gallery program.
