On the Needles of These Days
2004; Routledge; Volume: 18; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/0952882042000199641
ISSN1475-5297
Autores ResumoClick to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes Vitezslav Nezval, Ulice Gît‐le‐Coeur, Borovy, Prague, 1936, translated into French as Rue Gît‐le‐Coeur, Editions de l'Aube, Paris, 1988. Nezval, Rue Gît‐le‐Coeur, p 15. Co‐translated by M Hlákava and B Vanicek, F J Muller, Prague, 1935. Petr Král, ed, Le surréalisme en Tchécoslovaquie, Gallimard, Paris, 1983, pp 18–19. In fact, Nezval wrote a trilogy of books, each one an autobiographical account of a different city: Neviditelna Moskva (Invisible Moscow, 1935), Ulice Gît‐le‐Coeur (1936) and Prazsky chodec (Prague Pedestrian, 1938), all published by Borovy, Prague. None of Nezval's books have been translated into English, but aside from the French translation of Rue Gît‐le‐Coeur (see note 1), a section of Prazsky chodec is translated as ‘Le Passant de Prague’ in Král ed, Le surréalisme en Tchécoslovaquie, pp 236–41. André Breton, ‘Situation surréaliste de l'object’ in Position politique du surréalisme, Editions du Sagittaire, Paris, 1935, p 122 (text of a lecture delivered in Prague on 29 March 1935). Krzysztof Fijalkowski and Michael Richardson, ‘Years of Long Days: Surrealism in Czechoslovakia’, Third Text, no 36, Autumn 1996, pp 15–28. Works by Toyen and Styrsky were included in Dada and Surrealism Reviewed, but they were placed in the context of French Surrealism. See Jaroslav Andel, ed, Czech Modernism 1900–1945, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston/Bullfinch Press, Boston, 1990; and Frantisek Smejkal, ed, Devetsil, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford/Design Museum, London, 1990. Both contain essays by Smejkal on Czech Surrealism. Edouard Jaguer, Les Mystères de la chambre noire, Flammarion, Paris, 1982; and Monika Faber, Das Innere der Sicht, Osterreichisches Fotoarchiv im Museum moderner Kunst, Vienna, 1989, include essays on Czech Surrealist photography by Petr Král and Antonín Dufek respectively. In Czech, see Petr Král, Fotografie v surrealismu, Torst, Prague, 1994. Rosalind Krauss and Jane Livingston, eds, L'Amour fou, Corcoran Gallery, Washington/Abbeville Press, New York, 1985. Antonín Dufek, ‘Imaginative Photography’ in Andel, ed, Czech Modernism 1900–1945, op cit, p 146. From a note by Nezval at the back of Prazsky chodec. Oddly, this is the one photograph not reproduced in the French translation. In the original Czech edition, it is opposite p 14. André Breton, Nadja, Gallimard, Paris, 1928. Only with the second edition of 1963 was Boiffard's authorship acknowledged. The relationship between Parisian Surrealism and documentary photography is discussed in my book City Gorged with Dreams, Manchester University Press, 2002; on the photographs in Nadja, see Chapter 3, pp 48–67. Král specifically cites Nezval's mythologisation of the city in his book of poems, Prague with fingers of rain (1936). This was translated into French as Prague aux doigts de pluie, Les Editeurs Français Reunis, 1960, while a selection was translated by Ewald Osers in Three Czech Poets, introduction by Graham Martin, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1971. Nezval, Rue Gît‐le‐Coeur, p 15. For an outline of Styrsky's overall oeuvre, see Styrsky – Toyen – Heisler, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 1982. Karel Teige, ‘Cesty ceskosolvenské fotografie’, Blok, 2:6, 1948, p 81. Styrsky, ‘Surrealisticka fotografie’, Ceske Slovo, 30 January 1935, p 10, and Nezval, ‘Surrealismus a Fotografie’, Svetozor, no 29, 1936, pp 288–9. The bulk of Styrsky's work is in the Museum of Applied Arts in Prague: 66 prints each 30 × 30 cm with a further 404 6 × 6 cm contact prints mounted together on sheets of card. (Many of Styrsky's most intriguing images exist only as contacts.) These were bought from Toyen in 1972 by Anna Farová, then Curator of Photography at the Museum. Farová's subsequent book Jindrich Styrsky – fotograficke dilo, 1934–1935, Jazzpetit, Prague, 1982, was published under the pseudonym Annette Moussu (her mother's name) owing to political restrictions. She had originally written the book in French in the hope of publishing it in the West; the essay referred to in note 22 was extracted from this version. My thanks to Anna Farová for allowing me to read and copy her French text More recently, see also Karel Srp, Jindrich Styrsky, Torst, Prague, 2001, with a text in English and a good selection of photographs. For a discussion of the influence of Atget on Styrsky, see Anna Farová, ‘Un Tcheque: Jindrich Styrsky’, in Colloques Atget, ed Pierre Barbin, special number of Photographies, March 1986, pp 74–81. Jindrich Styrsky and Toyen, Pruvodce Parizi a Okolím (A Guide to Paris and its Environs), Odeon, Prague, 1927, produced in collaboration with the writer Vincenc Necas. Teige, ‘Cesty ceskosolvenské fotografie’, op cit, p 81. Finally published as Sny, Odeon, Prague, 1970. There was an odd coincidence here when a similar image of a doctor and semi‐nude female patient was later used by Barbara Kruger in her 1988 work Untitled (No Radio); see Kruger, Love for Sale, Abrams, New York, 1990, p 39. Jindrich Styrsky and Jindrich Heisler, Na jehlach techto dni, published privately 1941; reprinted Borovy, Prague, 1945. Translated into German as Auf den Nadeln dieser Tage, Edition Sirene, Berlin, 1984. Anna Karová, ‘Un Tcheque: Jindrich Styrsky’, op cit, p 80. For an evocation of the importance of the book in Czech culture, see Pavel Buchler, ‘A Snapshot from Bohemia’ in Creative Camera: Thirty Years of Writing, ed David Brittain, Manchester University Press, 1999, pp 199–202. Antonin Dufek, ‘Imaginative Photography’, op cit, pp 138–40. The Almanach surréaliste du demi‐siécle was a special issue of La Nef, 63–64, March 1950 (reprinted: Plasma, Paris 1978). The image by Styrsky is opposite p 94. Antonín Dufek of the Moravian Gallery in Brno has written extensively about Reichmann's work, including the introduction to Vilém Reichmann, Foto Mida, Ceské Budéjovice, 1994. In the Moravian Gallery, there are over 300 prints from all periods of Reichmann's career and I want to thank Antonín Dufek for his hospitality there. The ‘Ra’ group existed publicly from 1945 to 1948, during which time it created links with CoBrA and Christian Dotrement's ‘Congres international des Surréalistes révolutionnaires’. But with the Communist takeover in 1948, this group activity came to an end and the Czech artists returned to a state of isolation. ‘Devet otazek Vilému Reichmannovi’, in Skupina Ra, Galerie hlavnijo mesta Prahy, Prague, 1988, pp 85–6. Cycly, with a text by Vaclav Zykmund, SNKLHU, Prague, 1961. Information from Antonín Dufek, 1992. Sever was, however, close friends with another photographer, Miroslav Hák, whose work would deserve attention in any larger survey of Czech Surrealist photography. Hák was a founder member of the ‘42 Group’, concerned to develop Surrealist‐derived ideas during the war years. Jírí Kolar was another member who latterly achieved fame in the West. These were bought by Anna Farová from Sever's family after his death in 1968. For a brief discussion, see Ian Walker, City Gorged with Dreams, op cit, pp 124–5. See Adolf Kroupa, Petr Tausk and Vaclav Zykmund, eds, Surrealismus a fotografie, Fotograficky kabinet Jaromira Funka, Brno, 1966; Otto Steinert and Vaclav Zykmund, eds, Surrealismus und fotografie, Museum Folkwang, Essen, 1966; Adolf Kroupa, Vilém Reichmann, Petr Tausk and Vaclav Zykmund, eds, Surrealismus a fotografie, Sini Cs. spisovatele, Prague, 1968. Jírí Sever, Odeon, Prague, 1968. Anna Farová, ‘Z tvurci dilny Emily Medkove’, Ceskoslovenska fotografie, no 8, 1976. Extracts are quoted in Emila Medková, House of Photography, Prague, 1995. The bulk of Medková's work remains in the possession of her daughter Eva Kosaková and son‐in‐law Petr Kosak and I am grateful to them for allowing me to see this archive and for discussing it with me. Fijalkowski and Richardson, ‘Years of Long Days’, op cit, p 23. See Farová, ‘Z tvurci dilny Emily Medkove’, op cit. Emila Medková, with text by Jan Kriz, SNKLU, Prague, 1965. J S Bach: Fantasia in G Minor is on the video Svankmajer: Volume 2, Connoisseur, London, 1991. Conversation with the author, Cardiff, 1992. These comments are based on a discussion with Alois Nozicka, Prague, 1993. This politicised reading of Medková's work was suggested to me by Antonín Dufek, though Petr Kosak stressed more personal meanings. Nosicka, however, acknowledges this political undertow in his own work. In the 1960s, many Czech artists were attracted to the ‘Informel’, derived from action painting of the West. The work of Medková and Nozicka, however, is distinct from that of the Informel photographers who moved into abstraction. Farová, ‘Z tvurci dilny Emily Medkove’, op cit. Alena Nádvorníková, ‘Anthropomorphization of fragments of reality in Emila Medková's photography’, in Surrealism as a collective adventure: the Surrealist group in Czechoslovakia, ed Tony Pusey, special issue of Dunganon, no 4, 1986. In Analogon, no 3, 1990, they paid tribute to her with a series of texts and images by members of the group. Invention, Imagination, Interpretation: A Retrospective Exhibition of the Group of Czech and Slovak Surrealists, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea, 1998. Milan Nápravník, Na Brehu: Surrealisticke Protokoly, Pariz 1969, Atlantis, Brno, 1992, pp 206–7. (My thanks to Milan Nápravník for sending me a copy of Na Brehu for this research.) Ibid, p 166. Ibid, between pp 128–9. Nápravník has also used photography to produce his ‘Inversages’, where two reversed versions of the same image are put together to make a new symmetrical image (see Inversaz, Artfoto, Prague, 1995). André Breton, ‘Toyen’, Surrealism and Painting, Icon, New York, 1972, p 209. Breton's references are to Apollinaire's poem Zone, the Charles Bridge spanning the river Vlatava, the clock on the Jewish Town Hall and Golden Lane in the precincts of Prague Castle. (I have changed one detail in Simon Watson Taylor's translation, which reads ‘its magnificent bridge with the topiary statues’; the term used by Breton ‘haie’ can mean both hedge and row and I have chosen sense over surreality, though not without regret.) Quoted by Fijalkowski and Richardson, ‘Years of Long Days’, op cit, p 27. (The present essay has its roots in research undertaken in the Czech Republic in 1992–93, made possible by grants from the Arts Council of Wales and the British Council. My work there was greatly aided by Ilona Hamplová, while in London David Short provided additional translations.)
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