Multitudes
Of a bastard line.
- Joined
- Nov 27, 2005
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I thought it was time to start a thread on one of the most celebrated Czech photographers and, for me, undoubtable one of the most interesting contemporary photographers still producing work 
...
He is not a fashion photographer, but I think his work raises a lot of questions, especially in relation the body and the body image, which is important in the context of fashion, so here we go ...
Jan Saudek is distinctive and original, his work is not part of any genre or movement. He cannot be compared to anyone and there is no way to classify him. His controversial work daringly plunges into human emotions, drives, passions, consciousness as well as the subconscious, has the integrity of great artists, including style, view point, and expression.
His photographs moves from emotionally strong celebrations of the family - the apotheosis of womanhood, manhood, motherhood, fatherhood, childhood, and the lover. Saudek was fascinated by the metamorphosis of adolescence, attracted by the questions of birth and death, and the dimensions of love and human decency. In his photographs, ecstatic emotions were blended with pathos and subtle humor. He was creating the symbols of family, which are inseparable.
To a duality of emotions entered his pictures - the relationship between love and hate, sincerity and falsehood, beauty and ugliness, youth and old age. These antithetic elements created dramatic tension and at the same time, were mutually attracting and built up new meanings. Irony or even cynicism permeated the relationship between woman and man. True, even by aggressiveness and - fatality. It was a game, a fight to take control over the other one. These were stories of love and ruin, sometimes even tragic. During that period, the eroticism of his photographs was gaining intensity.
He delves into carnality, aggressive animalism to perversity, and even to a certain extent, masochism. However, Saudek's obsession with the body-any body, including a very old, fat and misshapen one - is not guided by the fashionable aesthetics of loathsomeness. On the contrary, it is filled with a hedonism that are even joyful and erotic. The tension between the violence, atrocity, sexuality and creativity of the images gives perhaps shocking, yet emotionally very impressive conclusions to Saudek's pictures. He portrayes the part of humans in their fatal contradiction of being.
The whole of Saudek's work is very intimate and he is quite easily vulnerable to it himself. He is constantly taking chances that the viewer starts laughing or becomes angry - be it due to embarrassment, stuffiness or misunderstanding. But whether his photographs deal with most tender emotions or the questionable sides of human being, as a whole, they are a massive celebration of humanness. And it is this very original, provocative adoration of manhood - to which anything human is not strange - that makes Jan Saudek a unique character in contemporary photography.
His Early work ...
My Very First Photograph, 1953
Hey, Joe!, 1959
Dawn No. 1, 1959
The Bond of Love No. 1, 1960
saudek.com
...He is not a fashion photographer, but I think his work raises a lot of questions, especially in relation the body and the body image, which is important in the context of fashion, so here we go ...
themuchagallery.cz
Jan Saudek is distinctive and original, his work is not part of any genre or movement. He cannot be compared to anyone and there is no way to classify him. His controversial work daringly plunges into human emotions, drives, passions, consciousness as well as the subconscious, has the integrity of great artists, including style, view point, and expression.
His photographs moves from emotionally strong celebrations of the family - the apotheosis of womanhood, manhood, motherhood, fatherhood, childhood, and the lover. Saudek was fascinated by the metamorphosis of adolescence, attracted by the questions of birth and death, and the dimensions of love and human decency. In his photographs, ecstatic emotions were blended with pathos and subtle humor. He was creating the symbols of family, which are inseparable.
To a duality of emotions entered his pictures - the relationship between love and hate, sincerity and falsehood, beauty and ugliness, youth and old age. These antithetic elements created dramatic tension and at the same time, were mutually attracting and built up new meanings. Irony or even cynicism permeated the relationship between woman and man. True, even by aggressiveness and - fatality. It was a game, a fight to take control over the other one. These were stories of love and ruin, sometimes even tragic. During that period, the eroticism of his photographs was gaining intensity.
He delves into carnality, aggressive animalism to perversity, and even to a certain extent, masochism. However, Saudek's obsession with the body-any body, including a very old, fat and misshapen one - is not guided by the fashionable aesthetics of loathsomeness. On the contrary, it is filled with a hedonism that are even joyful and erotic. The tension between the violence, atrocity, sexuality and creativity of the images gives perhaps shocking, yet emotionally very impressive conclusions to Saudek's pictures. He portrayes the part of humans in their fatal contradiction of being.
The whole of Saudek's work is very intimate and he is quite easily vulnerable to it himself. He is constantly taking chances that the viewer starts laughing or becomes angry - be it due to embarrassment, stuffiness or misunderstanding. But whether his photographs deal with most tender emotions or the questionable sides of human being, as a whole, they are a massive celebration of humanness. And it is this very original, provocative adoration of manhood - to which anything human is not strange - that makes Jan Saudek a unique character in contemporary photography.
His Early work ...
My Very First Photograph, 1953
Hey, Joe!, 1959
Dawn No. 1, 1959
The Bond of Love No. 1, 1960
saudek.com
]
... thank you for inspiring me to do this thread
