Jaromír Novotný / As seen in their natural environment

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.

Jaromír Novotný / As seen in their natural environment

23.10.2024 - 20.12.2024

Fait Gallery MEM, Ve Vaňkovce 2, Brno

Curators: Denisa Bytelová and Sráč Sam

Opening: 23rd October, 7 pm

Rest and movement are relative states. They have their own meaning, incomprehensible and invisible to the viewer, and so we attempt all the more to relate to a mystical interpretation of Jaromír’s work. The initial moment is alluring and entices us to follow it, to develop our reflections on spiritual urgency, but let us pause and pay attention to his uncommon organization, which aims to neither teach us nor force a sense of order upon us. Jaromír inflicts irreparable damage on his paintings. He recognizes his domain and, with a thorough knowledge of the material, decides on its future. This time, he remains intrinsically bound to both aforementioned factors. Rest and movement.

From this perspective, all that is physical is free. Nevertheless, the question raised by the sight of the attached, sewn-on, and sometimes scarred parts of the painting, a question we must inevitably address, is this: As we gaze at the fixed, needle-pierced canvas, how long can we keep from thinking of injuries and how much attention does our automatic mind pay to the idea of abandoning well-trodden paths? For our mind flows; it does not wait for permission but draws on personal experience.

JaromírNovotný merely records this fact without letting himself be unsettled by it. Any slight irritation is allowed to thoroughly dissolve in waiting. He proceeds according to his acquired awareness. Everything plays out with precision, through concentrated work – not, however, as an effort with an expected outcome, but rather by adopting his own physical and spiritual trajectories. He permits himself to exist in a limited, self-determining space. In this way, he becomes inseparable from thinking about contemporary art. His belonging is not established by acceptance. Perhaps things are irreversible and fluid, but for a certain amount of time we can still use specific actions to halt the dependence of temporal forms. In the case of Novotný’s paintings, our dependence on the physical material – from which we turn away even as we cling to it – tries to guide us past ourselves toward precise thinking. To guide us toward a slow reading inclined to performance. Epic dramas must be allowed to fall silent so that our cyclical thinking can achieve the same amazement from a painting.

How little yellow is still acceptable? When is a blue thread understood as an object, and at what distance do we begin to feel unsure whether we are looking through gessoed transparent polyester at a painting’s innards? On the one hand we have the processes of entropic change, and against this inevitability we can experience the painting’s subject, processed and managed in such a way as to show us only ourselves. By its rigid visual representation, it steers us toward the perception of movement as time, toward a number of personified changes resulting from interactions with our immediate surroundings. In a painting, everything that until a certain moment showed no signs of significance moves toward the greatest possible emphasis. The outward power of the ordinary is removed and incorporated into the painting. The sequence of changes shows us where the past lies. We want to and are drawn to Jaromír’s paintings precisely because of the unexpected contradiction of things, a contradiction that brings with it the possibility of revisiting our initial reflections on time and routine. It invites us to reevaluate our biases. Through conscious deliberation and waiting, it performs much visible work.

It is generally assumed that exhibitions allow for a greater control of reflections, but the very decision to engage in such considerations is more a profligate waste of thoughts than frugal moderation. Nothing is simple this time, for we will have to abandon the habit of anticipated events.

Sráč Sam

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