Václav Jirásek – Infection

#1 min Pavel Vančát, Václav Jirásek

29. 1. 2024

Test popisku pod fotkou en
Test popisku pod fotkou en
#46 TourismPhotobooksMemory

Infection is an original picture album, which Jirásek used in the midst of a covid pandemic to revisit his twenty-year-old but prophetic cycle Infekce in a giant loose-leaf format and a characteristically plastic cover. The project originally began as a friendly, therapeutic collaboration with publisher Daniel Trávníček, that mysterious central figure in the caped suit. I would like to highlight Michal Nanora's extensively colourful and poetic text, which puts the scenes into many new perspectives: 'Perhaps a sovereign denier of pandemics and climate change, a fan of conspiracy theories and a pesticide salesman, a steak eater and a fossil digger, a canister carrier of the thirsty 20th century, a CO2 CEO in a tinfoil hat?  Hard to know. Perhaps a time-traveling businessman, seeking immunity in a return to an old golden time that never was."

 

Václav Jirásek, Infection 2001-2021. UMPRUM: Eastern Front, Prague / London, 2021

#46 TourismPhotobooksMemoryDocumentTherapyTruthTourismAuthor's review

Pavel Vančát

is a free-lance curator and writer, based in Prague. Since 2008, he has worked as project curator of StartPoint: prize for European Art Graduates. He has curated dozens of exhibitions of contemporary art, photography, and visual culture. He was the head curator of Prague’s Fotograf Festival 2019 and co-curator of m3 Sculpture Festival 2020: Layers of History.

#46 Tourism

It is interesting how much the world of photography is connected with tourism, in other words, how much the two domains may have in common. If we look at them through the lens of a mass phenomenon, they may even be similarly old. And it is in this perspective that a number of controversial questions arise in all their clarity. To what extent has tourism affected many of the coastlines and unique destinations that attract tourists? And to what extent does photography influence our perception of the places we visit?

Filip Láb – Apostle of Future Photography

#5 min Filip Láb, Pavel Vančát

Filip Láb – Apostle of Future Photography

#41 Postdigital PhotographyProfilePostdigital photography

Filip Láb, who died unexpectedly and prematurely in May 2021, was not only a prominent theorist and teacher of photography, but was also one of a generation of artists that dealt with the shift in political polarities and radical changes in the photographic paradigm. His relatively short but very significant creative period, tied to his collaboration with Bára Mrázková, still surprises with its innovation and precision.