without getting all psychoanalytic about it, what's really interesting is that nearly 5 years after you opened this thread, you still seem hot under the collar about the subject.
Tichy's images are rather disturbing, and 5 years of disturbance says something for their power
OK I guess I should just take it up the State funded Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney and ask why they spent on this unproven, hyped up, hipster "artist" This was not a couple of prints, it was a major show.
After all they did exhibit an extensive show of William Eggleston jointly with lesser known NZ photographer Laurence Aberhart (who knocked the sox off Tichy's aberrations) and currently Jeff Wall. Must have been a senior moment when they took on Tichy, but he was probably a hot item in all those expensive art magazines they read.
OK I guess I should just take it up the State funded Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney and ask why they spent on this unproven, hyped up, hipster "artist" This was not a couple of prints, it was a major show.
After all they did exhibit an extensive show of William Eggleston jointly with lesser known NZ photographer Laurence Aberhart (who knocked the sox off Tichy's aberrations) and currently Jeff Wall. Must have been a senior moment when they took on Tichy, but he was probably a hot item in all those expensive art magazines they read.
When one is testing film and developers you shoot resolution charts and other test images you do not do so by shooting Halfdome or other AA subjects.
That's the point. Sometimes we need to be made to feel uncomfortable.
From the small amount of Tichy's work I have seen I am reserving any direct comment on it. The very fact that Tichy's work invokes an emotional response from you is an indication that his photographs are working at a certain level.
I read Ansel Adams and sometimes I say, yeah okay Ansel that's nice but photography isn't my day job.
No I mean my eyes can't focus. Not "I find a picture of a woman who got hit in the face 'uncomfortable' to look at."
His photographs didn't evoke an "emotional response" any more than a pebble in my shoe would evoke an emotional response..
Do you talk to Ansel often?
I suggest you see your optician....
OK I guess I should just take it up the State funded Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
This grubby old fart ...
tichy's images have a surreal quality to them much like atget's work .
Now I understand your vitriol, the Australian government is wasting your tax dollars on something you don't like.
(Emphasis added)
How uncharitable. I hope you live long enough to suffer the challenges of old age.
tichy did the best he could with what he had, and i think that is what i find remarkable about his work. trained as a sculptor,
his photographs ( or at least some of them ) look like sculptures rather than people photographed ... the "hotness" and dark OOF backgrounds.
i would imagine if anyone here on apug tried to make photographs as he did, they would probably fail. he knew his materials and equipment
well enough to succeed where most would fail, and he created a body of work as well.
===
ross
i have seen work by both the photographers you mentioned
( not the one from australia ) and while to a lot of people they are the epitome
of modern photography ... deadpan and posed portraits ...
they have never really done it for me. i know some people go nuts for this sort of stuff
as well as gurtsky and others in this new tradition
i find the work to be kind of mundane and oh humm ... kind of too staged and fake.
tichy's images have a surreal quality to them much like atget's work .
there isn't really much "to get" unlike the others mentioned where you have to read a treatise to "get it"
tichy to me is like the chuck bukowsky of czech photography ...
its too bad they don't make a feature film of him, his life, troubles and work. i'd pay to see it in a heartbeat.
( i have seen barfly, and private eye as well )
without getting all psychoanalytic about it, what's really interesting is that nearly 5 years after you opened this thread, you still seem hot under the collar about the subject.
Tichy's images are rather disturbing, and 5 years of disturbance says something for their power
Atget, now you're talking. Also comprehensive show in Sydney last year. We are spoilt.I am glad you brought this up. I noticed that there are several parallels in their lives.
Both worked in another medium before taking up photography. Atget was unsuccessful as a painter.
Both would be considered eccentric. For example, Atget lived on bread, milk and bits of sugar considering all other food as poisonous. He always wore the same rusty black coat as he worked.
Both were only recognized very late in life.
Both were championed by some one else. In Atget's case it was Bernice Abbott.
Both used very primitive or old equipment. But Atget had much better technique.
Both have now been panned on APUG. A rather dubious distinction.
Personally I much prefer Atget's work.
Atget has a crater on the planet Mercury named for him.
Jerry
Do you talk to Ansel often?
I suggest you see your optician.
You're clearly not a ballet dancer...
I don't know if you are saying this to attack me or defend Ansel. I will assume you are saying this to defend Ansel.
The "object" of art here is the obsession - not the photographs themselves. The photographs are merely pointers - they gesture towards that object. Precisely why I don't pretend to "get" contemporary art and confine myself to the renaissance. Less bullshit to put up with!
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