Peter Demek / Status

The artists of the collective exhibition The Other Side of a Photograph share unusual visuality, the consistency of light and the concept of individual photographs that challenge conventions. Selected works by the tandem of Lukáš Jasanský and Martin Polák, Michal Kalhous, Alena Kotzmannová, Marie Kratochvílová and Markéta Othová, in dialogue with Jan Svoboda's personal approach to photography and Jiří Kovanda's subtle interventions, allow us to glimpse, through their shared sensitivity, the hidden reality of the world in unexpected detail.

The selection of analogue, mostly black-and-white photographs seemingly captures what almost all of us see. In many cases, banal and sometimes even unphotogenic situations, often emphasised in a deliberately unprofessional manner to the point of amateur photography, are sometimes embarrassing. However, the mundane in them opens up wide boundaries of beauty that we probably would not have thought of without their help. Susan Sontag descrines it in the chapter The Heroism of Vision: “No one has ever found ugliness through photography. But many have discovered beauty in this way. Except when the camera is used for documentation or as part of a social ritual, what makes people take photographs is a desire to find something beautiful..."[1]

All of the artists, like Jan Svoboda (1934-1990) from the late 1960s, have in various ways transcended the established principles and canons of photography and in their distinctive approach deliberately questioned its supposed message and formal perfection, expanding it with new possibilities of treatment and perception. "The things I do show no artistry. And I want them not to. I want them not to be pretty, to be as ordinary as possible, not to dazzle, not to shock, not to surprise...”[2] Just like Svoboda's work, the works of the mentioned artists have never aspired to conform to standard photographic practices, and like him, some of them have also expressed their opposition to the very term photographer. The theorists Pavel Vančát and Jan Freiberg introduced for their broader thinking and grasp of the medium the fitting tem of "nonphotography"[3] referencing the term anti- or non-photography coined by Nancy Foote in 1976 in relation to postmodern photography.[4]

What makes their photographs so similar is their sophisticated work with technical imperfection, the peculiar tonality of the narrow grey scale and often the use of large formats in sharp contrast to the intimacy and apparent banality of the chosen subjects. Like Svoboda, they focus on their immediate surroundings such as the environment of their homes and the ordinary objects with which we share our private space. In a photograph constructed as an autonomous surface, the role of light in its reflection and absorption is essential, and so is the relationship between objects and their background, with its demarcation often so subtle that the two planes almost merge. This is of course enhanced by the narrow tonality of grey in the choice of black-and-white photography: "Since black-and-white configurations are theoretical, they cannot really exist in the world. But black-and-white photographs do exist. They are in fact the images of the conceptions of the theory of optics, which means that they arose from this theory. [...] Therein lies their strange beauty, identical to the beauty of the conceptual universe. This is why many photographers prefer black-and-white photographs as they reveal more clearly the true meaning of photography, i.e. the world of conceptios."[5]

In regard to the legacy of Jan Svoboda and his exceptional sensitivity, the exhibition shows selected photographs from the broader oeuvres of the individual artists in which forms and procedures more or less referring to Svoboda's work can be recognized. Due to the very narrow theme scope of the exhibition concept, images from various cycles and in some cases diptychs have been selected in collaboration with the artists, and it should be noted that their meaning, which was established in the original context through the composition of their units, has been altered for this specific event.

[1] SONTAG, Susan. O fotografii. Brno, Praha a Litomyšl: Barrister & Principal a Paseka, p. 80.

[2] OTHOVÁ, Markéta; CÍSAŘ, Karel; JANÍČKOVÁ, Adéla, a NOVOTNÝ, Michal. Markéta Othová: již brzy. V Praze: Národní galerie, 2022, p. 7.

[3] VANČÁT, Pavel, a FREIBERG, Jan (eds.). Fotografie?? / Photography?? (exh. cat.). Klatovy: Galerie Klatovy / Klenová, 2004.

[4] FOOTE, Nancy. The Anti-Photographers. Artforum, September 1976, year 15, no. 1., pp. 46–54. Also here:

Douglas FOGLE (ed.). The Last Picture Show. Artists Using Photography, 1960–1982 (exh. cat.). Minneapolis: Walker Art Center 2003, pp. 24–31.

[5] FLUSSER, Vilém. Za filosofii fotografie. Prague: Fra, 2013, pp. 48–49.

03.12.2015 - 28.01.2016

Fait Gallery
Božetěchova 1, Brno
3rd December 2015 - 28th January 2016
Opening: 2nd December 2015 at 7pm

Curator: Michal Novotný

Photo: Martin Kacvinský

The word “reality“ in Czech contains “action“. Reality then is not something neutral and independent, but on the contrary it is a matter of action, strength and work. The fact that the reality is actually torn out of the world confirms also the word concept. In Czech the root of the word concept suggests a physical grip, separation and perhaps connections, such as the case with "accepting a husband or a wife".

In the same meaning, as reality is connected with action, Peter Demek’s work is related to realism. The Slovak word used here (realism) is not chosen because of the nationality, but because of its better sound. Re-a-li-sm reminds us of the sound of the slitting saw cutting the iron. In realism you can not separate the "what" from "how".

The matter in realism, just because it’s realism, always flows with the idea. The ability to see the ideal form, "how it’s supposed to be," is indeed a matter of years of training, the growth of synaptic structures of neurons in the brain. A sudden understanding, a flash, as the word again suggests, is a release of energy, the reaction of electrical nerve impulses to the seen. A shape or rather a form, that Peter Demek sees in this flash in a specific every day life situation (such as the girl folding paper on the train or a speaker cord rolling down the stairs, or otherwise endless testing on paper or in a workshop), forms fundamentals, foundation for further work. One could almost say, that Peter in this flash peeks into the invisible structure beneath the surface of things. Realism can indeed be very mystical, just because Peter‘s objects are somehow more than just what we see – they have some sort of essential pre-matter aura. However the understanding of each man is always a sudden flash, that can never quite be replicated and simply expressed. Peter then, thanks to the years of training of sensitivity in compositions, forms and shapes, for a moment seems to understand how things forming the reality, which we don’t really notice most of the life, really are.

This inseparability of matter from the thinking and thinking from the matter continues also in the emphasise of processuality on the work. Fundamentals – theme – shape – a form that was abstracted, or rather made real, because in realism we can not speak about abstraction however was not fully grasped even at the moment of insight, and thus can never be made completely and permanently real. The tool helping to get closer becomes for Peter Demek on one side a sheer perfection of processing, which always faces the boundaries of material and tools – mediums, or vice versa – a certain roughness and brutality of the material used. The energy and time used for the object‘s creation then only further highlights the tension – like "revenge of the surface." However, the process must, because of the clear unavailability of the final outcome, continue outside the object. The motive materialised in the medium that Peter always places into a certain context, which is always a specific environment, whether it is in the gallery or the exterior, and at the same time into a physical mount, a platform, that helps to place them in this space. The situation created is then manipulated by performative actions. This leads to what might be called a "meeting" of an object with human activity or other objects. Because the never fully available result is just in the tension between the surface and the inside, the emphasis may take place both by covering and revealing, by changing of a part or the whole, or outlining or sweeping into and in all cases by an action irrecoverable or unrepeatable. All three steps however do not need to necessarily be present or implemented as it is not important, and not always entirely possible to distinguish them. They all rather just refer to what happens between them, or rather in the middle of a circle among them, like the invisible electrons that shoot by create the shape of the nucleus of an atom, which is not possible to see in the wavelength of light.

Michal Novotný, curator

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