Despite the fascination of the intertwined hands, in Jolana Havelková’s double exposure one simultaneously feels the urge to separate the overlapping contours of the backs of the hands from one another and to conceive them as distinct body parts. What does this reaction say about our relationship to the Other? In Tina Bara’s Konstellationen [Constellations] it’s every person for her or himself. Bodies photographed in hard light cast heavy shadows onto one another. A clear dividing line remains visible in every contact. Heji Shin photographs the exact moment when two bodies are separated. She conveys the instant of birth in which the baby’s purple coloured head emerges and becomes something distinct, the Other, the sight of which is strange to us. In his works Miloš Šejn returns to his own body, diving into a pond and encountering himself in contact with the acquiescent water as a foreign body. In Zdeněk Lhoták’s sports photography from 1986 the ideal of a stable structure of interactive bodies is disturbed. Some of the bodies moving about in the mud look like headless masses. In his contemporary works Andreas Schulze refers to structures in which bodies as such no longer exist. All that is left are fragments such as eyes in which desires and fears and information are reflected – or their absence is conveyed in the grid of black image surfaces. This dominance of the cutout-like image also plays a role in Dirk Braekman’s work. He films the photograph of a woman lying down as if he could breathe life into the captured image. This second view, however, reinforces both the power of the photographic vision and the failure to come closer. In Yvon Chabrowski’s double projection uniformly dressed individuals push from one image field into the next and against each other. There seems to be no escape.
text: Stephanie Kiwitt
Artists: Tina Bara, Dirk Braekman, Yvon Chabrowski, Jolana Havelková, Zdeněk Lhoták, Miloš Šejn, Heji Shin, Andreas Schulze
The exhibition takes place as part of Fotograf Festival: Uneven Ground
