Lenka Glisníková – Photography Can Still Be New and Bold

Alongside her individual artistic practice, Glisníková has long collaborated with Karolína Matušková as part of the duo Shotby.us, whose work moves between artistic and commercial photography. Their ability to carry experimental approaches across these two fields has become one of the defining features of their practice. Together, they have twice received a Czech Grand Design award, while Glisníková is also the laureate of the 2023 Jindřich Chalupecký Award.

At the beginning of June, as part of the Collector’s Circle programme, we visited Lenka and Karolína in their studio. We spoke about photography as a three-dimensional medium, the recycling of images and materials, creative dialogue within an artistic duo, and why Glisníková remains fascinated by the question of where the possibilities of photography actually end.

Your shared studio feels a little like a living organism. How would you describe the space?

KM     It is something between a photography studio, a workshop, and a library of our previous work. There are also objects by other artists with whom we share the space, so it functions as a kind of symbiosis. Many of the things that appear here are reused in new projects and recycled. In a way, the studio is a good reflection of how we think about making work: nothing is thrown away, and everything can become something.

How did the duo Shotby.us come about?

LG    We met at the Faculty of Arts at the University of Ostrava, in Michal Kalhous’s studio, although our time there only overlapped briefly. I was leaving for my master’s studies at UMPRUM in Prague just as Karolína was starting. We said we should try to do something together one day, and a few years later we did. We have now been working together for eight years, and I feel we have managed to find a shared visual language.

Lenka, at first glance, your artistic practice and your commercial commissions as Shotby.us seem closely connected. How do you perceive the boundary between them — or rather, its absence?

LG    That boundary is definitely much smaller than it was at the beginning. Ultimately, they are two worlds that constantly influence and inspire each other. Artistic practice is a place where we can ask questions without having to know the answers. In commercial work, the communication needs to be clearer, and we have to think about the specific needs of a particular client or audience. But even there, we try to preserve room for a moment of surprise.

How do you approach commercial commissions?

KM     We always try to bring something unexpected into them. When we were commissioned to photograph an apartment for Svoboda & Williams, we followed a kitten as it walked through the space, and in a way it chose the shots for us. When we photograph people, we try to place them in positions in which they have never been photographed before. For an editorial in Dolce Vita, we approached painters and turned their works into temporary tattoos, which then appeared in front of the lens alongside designer jewellery. We were surprised by how readily everyone from the independent art scene agreed to the concept. We took a similar approach when shooting for Sport in Art, attaching balls to the wreck of a car. These are playful strategies, and we enjoy allowing the commercial and artistic worlds to intersect.

Lenka, your work seems to be gradually moving away from conventional post-production and returning to purely photographic means. Why is that?

LG    I feel that photography can carry much more than we tend to think. I want to test where its limits are, what a photograph can still withstand, what it can still become. Coloured flashes and working with negatives are tools that belong to photography itself, and I am interested in pushing them to the extreme. At the same time, I like it when the result is not “clean and pretty”. For me personally, and for Shotby.us as well, it is about looking for ways to photograph differently.

Your work does not stop at photography as such; you move from surface to object and back again. How would you describe this process?

LG    It is a kind of endless cycle. I photograph an object, take it apart, apply it to a photograph, and then assemble it again, so the final work looks unexpected, perhaps even a little strange. An object becomes a surface, and the surface becomes an object again. The images accumulate further interventions, like geological layers, and mutate; they are born again in new forms. I disrupt the classical definition of photography as a single frozen moment.

Which techniques and materials define your practice?

LG    I work a lot with the recycling of materials and objects. The documentation of one work can become the source material for another. I experiment with plexiglass, into which structures are imprinted, while light passing through them creates patterns on the wall or floor. I am fascinated by water transfer printing, where a photograph dissolves in water and an object is dipped into the solution, so the image adheres directly to its surface.

You mention objects. What role does human scale play in this for you?

LG    Photography is generally perceived as two-dimensional, and I am interested in how it can be brought into three dimensions. I want viewers to be able to walk around an object, perceive it from different sides, and have a physical relationship with it.

As part of your exhibition at Kunsthalle, you and Karolína also took on a curatorial role. What was that experience like?

LG    Curating an exhibition can open up questions that I might not have asked on my own. When we worked on the exhibition at Kunsthalle, we were inspired by the idea of a doll’s house, as well as by our previous experience with scenography. For this project, we created textile sculptures from our photographs, which transformed the space while also helping to present the works of the exhibiting artists. It was a great experience.

How does working as a duo suit you? Do you ever feel that it limits your individual expression?

KM     Quite the opposite. One of the biggest problems in creative work is a block — when you run out of energy or ideas. Because there are two of us, we move each other forward. One of us always brings an impulse, and the other develops it or adds something to it.

Your work for Husa na provázku Theatre has been going on for six years, and it began with an exhibition at Fotograf Zone. How does this collaboration work?

KM     It is a very valuable collaboration for us. Six years is a long time, and each year brings a new theme and a new space for experimentation. It really did begin with an exhibition at Fotograf Zone, and I think that beginning set the tone for the collaboration, giving it an artistic dimension rather than making it purely documentary. We are now working on the visual identity for the theatre’s next season, and each year is a major creative challenge, because of course we do not want to repeat ourselves.

Lenka, your work will be part of the autumn exhibition at THE DESIGN, which will take place within the parallel programme of the Fotograf Zone festival. Can you give us a hint of what visitors can expect?

LG    Let’s say it is still in process. There will definitely be photographs and objects, but it is also an intervention into an exhibition that will already be underway, so that context will undoubtedly become part of the work as well.

Finally, what interests or occupies you most in your work right now?

LG    I am still fascinated by the question of what photography can be. Where its boundaries are, and whether it has any at all. I feel that the medium is still new and bold.

Lenka Glisníková

is a Czech artist working primarily with photography. She expands the medium through objects, installations, and performative actions, in which she questions the effects of contemporary shifts in human lifestyle brought about by unregulated technological progress. She completed her master’s degree in the Studio of Photography at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague and her bachelor’s degree in the photography studio at the Faculty of Arts in Ostrava. In addition to her individual artistic practice, she is, together with Karolína Matušková, part of the duo Shotby.us, which has twice been awarded at Czech Grand Design. Lenka is the laureate of the 2023 Jindřich Chalupecký Award, and Both Lenka’s works and pieces by Shotby.us are available through the Fotograf Contemporary platform.

Explore works by Lenka Glisníková and the duo Shotby.us, and support contemporary photography:
https://www.fotografcontemporary.cz/lenka-glisnikova/