Miroslav Tichy --Why?

I think a few of those photos are great.
His dedication to creating his style of art is what is truly inspiring, though
Art is nothing more than inspiration

Plenty of people on the internet talk a good game and probably take some photos of which some are surely pretty fair
Plenty are definitely rubbish
Only a few are likely truly great


People take dianas out and shoot
This guy has an even worse -possibly- camera
and the rest of his equipment might not be any better
This guy probably really enjoys what he's doing
Give someone here his equipment and they wouldn't allow themselves to be seen in public let alone let their work with such a camera
he's producing art on a daily basis with it
good or bad art
art the same

He's living in a time warp
more photographic inventor than consumer
and that's really neat, to me
He represents the First Photographer. Caveman walking around with garbage in his hands clubbing cavewomen over the head (with camera) and somehow makes magic with it back in the darkness of his cave

Pervert? Like there are any guys here who have never taken a photo of a chick before. please.
Seen one seem them all, right?
If you take one photo of a girl solely because she is a chick you're the same as this dude. period.

how many "nude female forms" do we see? please.

he photographs life
life is a bit "perverted"

Art doesn't have to be great. It can be subtle, shallow, interesting, comical, twisted, mundane and on and on. If we will only accept as art those things that are great or better we miss the vast majority of all the good stuff out there and we accept, in our own way, the ethos of the art promoters that we all deride.

I just saw that other Apug link Ian Leake pointed to

Saw this one
That's a fantastic and beautiful photo, IMO. As good as any Minor White.

Well at least he is original. With the Guggenheim hanging a Photograph of a photograph it would seem anything goes.
the more I look at Tichy's stuff the more I get it. I will stop short of saying I like it because that is not a Strong enough word. his stuff is creepy and voyeuristic I think that is the point.
to address the original post: Tichy is not the guy to lead a zone system work shop. This work is not about that type of craftsmanship.

Barry S said:

After doing a little research, it sounds like nothing more than a sickening story of manipulation and greed, by the charlatans that "discovered" Tichy. The found this manipulable old character with his pervy photos, scooped the photos up for a few bucks, and promoted him as the next big thing, so the photos could be sold for big money.

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This seems to be the case with more than a bit of what is sometimes presented as "outsider" art. Of which this seems to be a classic example. And why shouldn't a pervy homeless stalker with a homemade camera get a gallery showing? Makes as much sense as anything else. The thing I like about this sort of art is that unlike a lot of "real" contemporary art, when it works it's like getting a glimpse right into the inside of someone else's head, in a direct, unedited way. Which can be disturbing and weird, because it works against the conscious control we normally try to exhibit in our daily lives.

So yeah, he's a pervy homeless stalker, but the pictures are still cool.

If you're inspired by Tichy, great. To me, they look like mostly ratty prints made without care for the guy's own sexual gratification. I don't think any irony, commentary or metaphor is intended. Was it here that someone posted about a guy photographing women's hands and feet with his cell phone? I'm not sure I see much difference. I remember going with a friend to look over photographica at an estate and while we were sorting through everything we found an enormous collection of photos of snowflakes and vaginas. That was the deceased owner's oeuvre--snowflakes and vaginas. He'd built a special apparatus to photograph the snowflakes and although the prints were interesting, they were carelessly printed from filthy negatives. The same for the vaginas. I think the photographer had a scientific interest and a sexual interest, but the photos were artless.

A creative curator could have probably done a show, and maybe that's enough to create art. I went to a show called The Art of the American Snaphot at the National Gallery of Art and it was comprised of random snapshots over 100 years of photography and I was really impressed with many of the photos. I honestly though there were a lot of great images, but I wonder how my perception was colored by the fact that the show was at the NGA. Context counts for a lot.

I'm lukewarm on Minor White, but equating his work with a grubby grainy photo of "junk in the trunk"? At least I wouldn't be afraid to handle a Minor White print without a tongs. I mean it looks....damp.

Moopheus said:

This seems to be the case with more than a bit of what is sometimes presented as "outsider" art. Of which this seems to be a classic example. And why shouldn't a pervy homeless stalker with a homemade camera get a gallery showing? Makes as much sense as anything else. The thing I like about this sort of art is that unlike a lot of "real" contemporary art, when it works it's like getting a glimpse right into the inside of someone else's head, in a direct, unedited way. Which can be disturbing and weird, because it works against the conscious control we normally try to exhibit in our daily lives.

So yeah, he's a pervy homeless stalker, but the pictures are still cool.

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Yeah, I think that's a pretty good analysis. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I'd like to see it in person and see if my perception is different.

sun of sand said:

Saw this one
That's a fantastic and beautiful photo, IMO. As good as any Minor White.

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Eh? :confused:

I don't see it as junk in the trunk ass oddity that photo at all
The woman isn't even the most important aspect to that photo IMO
It's just an elder -looking -middle-aged woman set against a building and a car but for me it's fantastic.
I don't even see her ass

Eh? explain myself?
The composition is wonderful. It's like a robert motherwell.

Barry S said:

If you're inspired by Tichy, great. To me, they look like mostly ratty prints made without care for the guy's own sexual gratification. I don't think any irony, commentary or metaphor is intended. ... That was the deceased owner's oeuvre--snowflakes and vaginas. He'd built a special apparatus to photograph the snowflakes and although the prints were interesting, they were carelessly printed from filthy negatives. The same for the vaginas. I think the photographer had a scientific interest and a sexual interest, but the photos were artless.

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Yes, but so what? A special apparatus to photograph snowflakes? Now that's the kind of insane obsessiveness I can relate to. Sure, they may be artless, but that's a limitation of art, not of the photography. If you're only looking for "art," you're probably going to miss a lot of interesting things.

Barry S said:

After doing a little research, it sounds like nothing more than a sickening story of manipulation and greed, by the charlatans that "discovered" Tichy. The found this manipulable old character with his pervy photos, scooped the photos up for a few bucks, and promoted him as the next big thing, so the photos could be sold for big money. Throw in a few insecure addle-brained curators, and you have the new flavor of the month. I like and respect a lot of contemporary art, but sometimes people need to grow a pair and call bullshit.

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Mr Roman Buxbaum does appear very often as the discoverer, rescuer and promoter of Tichy.

BTW the prints on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney appear, as best as can be ascertained behind glass, to be on fibre based paper (they have the characteristic curl, albeit slight), so he's not that naive, or perhaps the rats ate all the resin coated ones.

BTW whoever mentioned him in the same sentence as Sudek will please wash their mouth out!

When I first came from Europe to Canada, I was shocked (culturally shocked), to read in the formulary I had to fill the text: sex (with checkboxes for male and female). Than I said to myself: well, it seams the woman is here only a female, and the gender difference between humans is reduced only to the sex. Of course, the biggest difference is the sex, but this makes a standpoint just from a biological point of view, not from a bureaucratic (or even social) one. Otherwise, why would a man give his place to a woman in the subway or the tram? Because of her sex? Or because of her gender, with reference to a social status, granting her priority in front of him? There’s a big difference between sex and gender. There’s a big difference between males or females on one hand, and men or women on the other.

These being said, it is understandable that some people see Miroslav Tichy as obsessed with females, voyeurist, and pervert. For these people a woman is only a female – they get sexually excited when seeing a shoe or a knee. In this case, who is the pervert?

But there are also people who see in his photography the beauty of the woman (not the female). In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen more beautiful photographs of women as those made by Tichy. In the two treads, here on APUG, concerning this artist, there’s somebody saying that his photography is very humanistic, and I would say this APUG-er read in my mind.

Tichy’s photographs might have all sins, but three:
1) The composition (figurative and chromatic) is beautiful, even if made mostly by cropping and with primitive tools. It is an alternative photography, perfectly comparable in outputs with the alternative processing.
2) The photographer’s fully respect for his subjects, even when “stilling” images through fences and windows or when cropping legs, knees, and rears, it always emphasis the beauty, and only the beauty, in every single women he is shooting. Besides, he never shows parts of the woman’s body she doesn’t want to show. The majority of his pictures are taken in public areas, style street photography in a time and a place where it was no need for model releases. Otherwise said, in places where the subjects were voluntarily exposed their bodies, in a perfect decent manner. As for the cropped images, they remain decent as long they emphasis on the beauty (which they do), not on sexuality. In this respect, Miroslav Tichy is above many big names of the photography, who made their celebrity by deeply abusing their subjects: their ugliness, handicaps, illnesses, deaths, poverty, joy or despair.
3) And he does all this in the most humble manner possible. Some are saying it is fake because he printed on FB, not on cheaper RC. But let’s face it, in Czechoslovakia’s that time, there were no RC papers yet. It’s like saying that authentic African art is fake because it is made in wood, not in epoxy. Come on, smarties!

These being said, I am convinced that Miroslav Tichy is setting a landmark in the history of the photography: the beauty of the women gender in the 20s century.

Just wanted to add two observations:
1) Did you people see how Tichy crops the image when emphasizing a woman’s body part? He does it like a sculptor, not like a pornographer.
2) While he did shoot women only in his hometown, the occurring images tend to reveal a universal value. And that could better explain (than the novelty) why he is exhibited allover the world.

sun of sand said:

Eh? explain myself?
The composition is wonderful. It's like a robert motherwell.

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I simply don't see how MW was invoked. I see no connection, to be honest. The subject matter and the capture and print techniques seem entirely unrelated.

And now I don't see how Motherwell was invoked either, his work is far more calligraphic and abstract, in my estimation. :confused:

Why don't we compare Tichy to Winogrand? :rolleyes: I mean, if you are going to compare totally different things then you're going to have to help us simpletons out a bit.... connect some dots...

I like the show that paired him with Julia Margaret Cameron. Both were working with unpredictable materials while developing an original voice that exalts the beauty in nature to create beautiful, new work in spite of the technical glitches.

I really wonder how much of this criticism is about him and how much is about his work. If he were a she and taught at a big art school, in NYC or Paris, would he really be so creepy?

Well put.

At least the work is pushing boundaries, there's a husband and wife team in the US who's whole purpose is exquisitely printed mediocrity . . . . . .

Ian

That's very well put but luckily it's a broad enough medium to encompass all points of view.

keithwms said:

I simply don't see how MW was invoked. I see no connection, to be honest. The subject matter and the capture and print techniques seem entirely unrelated.

And now I don't see how Motherwell was invoked either, his work is far more calligraphic and abstract, in my estimation. :confused:

Why don't we compare Tichy to Winogrand? :rolleyes: I mean, if you are going to compare totally different things then you're going to have to help us simpletons out a bit.... connect some dots...

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I wasn't comparing tichy to minor white

Why Motherwell
I don't see that kind of abstraction in Winogrands photos. Don't know a whole lot of abstractionist photographers by name. I see that photo as a composition of elements ..not of a ladies back or car or as some kind of emotional story to be read. I am not tying Tichy to Robert Motherwells art or statements ..just this photo to his compositional ability. I believe that photo shoes a great eye but if nothing else the eye of at least an artist of some real calibre.

sun of sand said:

... I don't see that kind of abstraction in Winogrands photos. Don't know a whole lot of abstractionist photographers by name. ...

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That's odd - I got to thinking and now I think that abstraction is part of the Czech tradition. While completely different, there is something that reminds me of František Drtikol...

sun of sand said:

I don't see that kind of abstraction in Winogrands photos.

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Oh okay. Well, the reason why I mention Garry Winogrand is the subject matter, not the actual photographic nor print technique, nor the degree of abstraction.

In a fair number of GW's photos one finds an informal, central, "beautiful" female subject. And quite often there is the feeling (to me) that his street photographs are taken somewhat spontaneously and surreptitiously... as if to imply both physical and emotional distance between the subject and the photographer. That aspect is what reminded me of GW, in Tichy's work.

František Drtikol

Frantisek Kupka



Orphism
same time period
not the kupka I wanted to show but can't find it.

keithwms said:

Oh okay. Well, the reason why I mention Garry Winogrand is the subject matter, not the actual photographic nor print technique, nor the degree of abstraction.

In a fair number of GW's photos one finds an informal, central, "beautiful" female subject. And quite often there is the feeling (to me) that his street photographs are taken somewhat spontaneously and surreptitiously... as if to imply both physical and emotional distance between the subject and the photographer. That aspect is what reminded me of GW, in Tichy's work.

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I guess I have more homework

Ian Grant said:

Well put.

At least the work is pushing boundaries, there's a husband and wife team in the US who's whole purpose is exquisitely printed mediocrity . . . . . .

Ian

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OUCH! Can't say I disagree. I have been scratching my head on this one for years....

Andy K said:

Ansell Adams prints were full of 'defects' too, don't see anyone slamming him.

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This is very true! A friend of mine worked for one of the premier Ansel Adams dealers in the US and he remarked quite often at how poorly the prints were spotted. I have noticed it too numerous times.

Anyone that thinks a photograph has to be technically perfect to be a work of art should just hang up their spurs right now. Too often the pursuit of technical perfection results in perfect mediocrity. I will take expression over perfection any day.

Peoples reactions to these images is interesting to me as well because I believe you can tell an extraordinary amount about a person as a result of his presumptions concerning the content of Tichy's work. Is he a lecherous dirty old man? Is he one of the most virtuous, irreproachable men walking the face of the earth? Surely the truth lies somewhere in between those extremes.

My only hope after reading about him is that he has benefitted in some way by his work and hasn't been ripped off as so happens to "discoveries" in the art world.

I find his work beautiful regardless of the reasons and methods he used to make it, and regardless of the kind of person he is.

Patrick

patrickjames said:

Anyone that thinks a photograph has to be technically perfect to be a work of art should just hang up their spurs right now. Too often the pursuit of technical perfection results in perfect mediocrity. I will take expression over perfection any day.

Patrick

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FWIW I agree wholeheartedly, but my particular taste is for controlled imperfection in pursuit of a particular aim. Tichy says in the Buxbaum produced and directed doco/promo that one way to be famous is to be the worst in the world at something. If that is his aim and his expression he succeeds IMHO. Nothing in his work seems under control.

As well some of his cameras are on display at the Sydney show and frankly I do not believe that a photograph of any sort could be taken with any of them by anybody including Tichy. It is possible that he hasn't used them for years and that they have been buried in the backyard -- for that is the only explanation that I can suggest for their condition -- and exhumed for his various shows. Check out the website; how does a camera get quite that decrepit without trickery?

Regards - Ross

There seem to be all sorts of assumptions here about some people's reasons for being unexcited about Tichy. I don't care if he's a pervert or a genius recluse pursuing his own path. I have an affinity for both! The only thing that matters is whether or not I feel compelled to keep looking at his photos. In my case, I was bored before I had reached the end of the book the first time I saw it. Ornette Coleman once remarked some thing to the effect of: the only thing that matters in art is one's emotional response. For me, Tichy doesn't hit e in any particular way. I'm not in love and I'm not disgusted.

Jmal