painting with light

Miroslav Tichy | Untitled | Undated | B/W photography on carton

I got the chance, just about a year ago, to see a collection of Miroslav Tichy's photographs

at the International Center of Photography here in NYC. I was captured by the images,

ideals, and methods to the way Tichy lived at worked. The body of work on display

was from his wanderings throughout Kyjov (communist Czech at this time) during the 60's

and 70's. Very strongly opposed to the modernist infatuation with newness and progress

as well as the communist state throughout this period, his work became

personal pleasure amid public repression.

"The artist devotedly wandered the streets, compiling a meticulous photographic

archive of Kyjov. He mainly photographed the local women; curvaceous contours

of body in motion, captured moments of sartorial revelation, smooth calves truncating

from underneath full skirts, and remote utterances muttered between intimate sororities.

He honored women in bikinis, becoming a regular of the periphery of the local

swimming pool, photographing from the other side of the fence, the metal mesh dissecting

the surface of his images. He worked with a homemade camera that he fashioned

from used materials, such as shoe boxes, rubber bands and tin cans, complete with

makeshift telephoto lenses, polished with toothpaste and ashes.

Tichy would then print on a homemade enlarger.

He would subsequently adorn certain prints with pencil marks, highlighting the

contours of a form, or decorating the edges with colored cardboard borders,

until the works were spilled scatteringly onto the floor, some used as beer mats,

some nibbled by rats."

"I explore every atom. That makes me an atomist." -- Miroslav Tichy

Miroslav Tichy | Untitled | Mixed media on photograph

Tichy | Untitled | Undated | B/W photography on baryta paper,

on blue paper, on carton

Tichy | Untitled | Undated | Silver gelatine print

Tichy | Untitled | Undated | B&W photography on baryta paper

in a passepartout

Tichy | Untitled | Mixed media on photograph

Tichy | Untitled | Mixed media on photograph

Tichy | Untitled | Undated | Mixed media on photograph

Tichy | Untitled | Undated

"These days there are plenty of artists who take photographs. They have modern

digital equipment and the best computer software. They try to make their pictures

look crude. They want something like a document of reality. But can you believe a

30-year-old university graduate? Does he really know what is crude? It is simply

impossible, especially in comparison to Miroslav Tichy. He lurks in a horrible coat

and -- from behind bushes and walls -- takes photographs of fragments of female nudity

or the steps of a woman walking down the street" -- Roman Buxbaum,

who introduced Tichy's work to the world.

Unfocused, not well developed and damaged by weather and careless handling,

never meant to be exhibited and, even now, Tichy objects to the success and fame.

He chooses the people he talks to and shares his opinions with. He has described

exhibitions as a waste and says this world is no more than "a double shit."