STUDIO M NEDVĚD WORKS (VIEW AS INDEX)

Alexandr Skalický (*1932) is part of a small group of photographers who responded to the influences of conceptual art that seeped into the former Czechoslovakia from the West in the 1980s. With the Iron Curtain isolating it from the rest of world, the local environment interpreted everything coming from the outside through the lens of its own experience. This fact, together with the art photography concept dominating Czechoslovak photography at the time, created a constellation that gave rise to a unique oeuvre that provides an account of not only the artist and his work, but also of life under communism and of the thought and operating mechanisms in place in Czechoslovak photography. This book was conceived and written by Jiří Pátek, the curator of the Photography and New Media Collection at the Moravian Gallery in Brno.

Exhibition graphics and visuals for the National Gallery's exhibition 1989 at the Trade Fair Palace in Prague. This exhibition was organised to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution as part of the project Havel na Hrad! (Havel to the Castle!). Architect Zbyněk Baladrán.

The texts were composed from March 2021 to March 2022 as a result of mostly e-mail based communication between co-authors and close collaborators. During this period of time, the covid pandemic was replaced by a pandemic of war madness after Russia's aggression against Ukraine. The authors were drawn into the event from the first moment aware of its fundamental and historical character. The central motif of their reflections are national myths and prejudices. The book is significantly accompanied with illustrations by Kristián Štupák.

In cooperation with the Czech Olympic Team we have designed the first comprehensive publication for the legend of Czechoslovak sports photography Karel Novák (*1925–†2007). From the archive of more than 200,000 photographs this book in 272 pages introduces Karel Novák as a passionate sports photographer who covered a wide range of sports. He captured eight olympics and dozens of world championships in various popular sports. Among other things, he photographed sports legends for many years like multiple Olympics champions Věra Čáslavská, Jiří Daler, Dana and Emil Zátopek, tennis legends Martina Navrátilová, Jan Kodeš...

The platform Sport in Art is coming to the market with a new printed magazine of the same name. Its content will please both readers who follow sports and those who are interested in art. It will be published four times a year and it will offer unexpected connections and intersections of sports and art. Each issue will be dedicated to a specific sports topic.

The specific conditions existing in totalitarian Czechoslovakia gave rise to a qualitatively new middle class, one that was fundamentally different from the middle class of the First Republic, which Czechs view as a symbol of a prosperous modern democracy. The members of this new middle class did not have the same financial resources as their predecessors from the interwar period; however, a substantial number were educated and possessed a critical opinion of the social status quo, predisposing them to create various informal communities that tried to stay in contact with cultural events beyond the Iron Curtain. One such community were contemporary art collectors who, in direct contact with artists, assembled unique collections of art. Through the lens of their activities, they have written stories that remind us of just how ambivalent the world was in the second half of the twentieth century.

South Bohemian Gallery presents an exhibition of Czech art of the generation born in the years 1939–1953. This generation entered culture at the time of normalization. Art from this period was often the result of deep civilizational and cultural, social and political contradictions overlooked and banned or condemned by the official institutions of the communist regime. At the same time, the generation born in the era of Hitler‘s and Stalin‘s tyranny was facing the difficult tasks of art restitution after the collapse of humanity during the fascism, the Holocaust and the dictatorship of the proletariat. Over 100 events and works of art from more than thirty artists of Czech origin demonstrate the efforts of presented generation to restore the value of the natural world, which has become a world of absurdity. Designed in collaboration with Karel Štědrý.

On the occassion of the premiere of the documentary movie My Name Is Hungry Buffalo, this silkscreen print was released in the limited number of 30 prints. Last copies still available for purchase.

Poster design for the documentary movie My Name Is Hungry Buffalo about Jan who calls himself Buffalo. He loves cowboys, he’s blind, and may lose his hearing. This movie follows his journey to America to visit the chief of the Navajo tribe, who wants to perform a ritual to help his hearing. Photography © Roman Franc.

Metropolight is young Czech photographer David Gaberle’s debut publication. Although the book presents his first-ever comprehensive photographic series, the result feels eminently mature. The pictures were taken in hypermodern cities such as Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Seoul, Sydney, London, and New York. Gaberle observes alleyways, stairwells, parks, train stations, subway cars, galleries, and bridges, slowly revealing the hidden order that exists between the world of things and the world of people. In his introduction to the book, author Petr Volf writes: “The photographs’ range of color carries symbolic meanings, and the lights of the visited cities – whether natural, direct, or artificial – become lighthouses which make us feel safe.”