On show was an exhibition about the Czech photographer Miroslav Tichý. It’s the first of its kind in France. He’s 80 now and has taken a huge array of photographs that obsessively catalogue the world around him. A place it appears that is singularly made up of women either in their stockings or out and about in their bikinis.
Something of a marginal figure he steadfastly refused the social, political and personal values of the Communist period. Living alone, surrounded by his photographs, he’s practiced his art without, it seems, ever having much of a care that any of it be considered as art. His pictures were left to the ravages of time, either being damaged by dripping water or gnawed on by passing rats.
Tichý took up photography in the mid-1950s, reinventing it as it were from scratch and building his own cameras and enlargers from shoe-boxes, tin cans, recycled glass and other waste materials. His work has only recently been rescued from neglect by his neighbour, the film director Roman Buxbaum.
Often described as timeless, Tichý shoots instinctively or carelessly on his handmade cameras.. What comes out of it are these other worldly images that are often erotically charged. Here’s a link to his work
http://www.tichyocean.ch/Documentations/Works
Dan
Producer/Director, Sky Arts
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