#38 death, when you think about it
A third of the population never talks about death with their loved ones. The society of the global North has lost its natural attitude towards death. Through the ideal of infinite growth, consumer life, and the cult of eternal youth, death gradually became taboo. The presence of death has been delayed by society through a healthcare system focused on improving citizens’ physical condition, thus effecting the greatest possible delay to dying – not only in practice, but also within the collective consciousness of mainstream society. The importance and depth of the process of departure is reduced. One possible result is the suppression of fears connected to the end of life, which make it impossible to experience life in the present.
For theorists of photography such as Susan Sontag and Roland Barthes, the medium of photography was itself a kind of death or its imprint. As Sontag points out: “Photographs state the innocence, the vulnerability of lives heading toward their own destruction, and this link between photography and death haunts all photographs of people.” The fragile line between death and life has been the subject of art since antiquity. What are the forms taken by the topic today? It might be difficult to go through all the layers of emotion that surround our cessation, but we will try to imagine the diverse moments of encountering death and the different perspectives one might adopt, with the aim, ideally, of accepting respect and gratitude for life, allowing us to perceive it in the present. The art of accepting death at that moment can become the art of living.
#43 collecting — Intro
Collecting – special 20th anniversary issue

This edition departs from our series of thematic issues, as it is a celebration of the magazine’s twentieth birthday. As is usually the case with birthday celebrations (particularly such important ones), memories of the past intersect with the future…
Read more#43 collecting — Topic
The Infinity of Lists

An incomplete calendarium of Czech photography 2002–2022
Even though history is not obedient and does not unfold from a given date to another, instead passing by in an unbroken continuum, it is our habit to single out various epochs and phases…
Read more#43 collecting — Wanted
Adam Evans

The digital collage Hledání mentefaktu (Finding the Mentefact, 2018) was created as an intuitive illustration for a performative research expedition at the site of a former landfill where a friend and I were staying…
Read moreTaste Fotograf #40
#43 collecting — Collecting special
The Beginner Collector’s Guide to Photography

Over the past fifty years, the photography market has seen significant development and growth. The rarest photographs sell at auctions for prices on a par with major works of contemporary art…
Read more#43 collecting — Interview
Interview with Sven Eisenhut, the Director of Photo Basel

In mid-June 2022, I visited Photo Basel, a charming boutique fair dedicated to photography that takes place during the Art Basel week. It is a stop worth making as the fair’s approach is different in comparison to others…
Read moreContent
- ––– Topic
- Do you all just cry there?
- ––– Autorské knihy
- By the Sea: Photographs from the North East, 1976-1980
- Anonym 1968-1984
- Did You Know?
- White Gaze
- Peeing in Public: An inventory of the Wildest Urinators
- Myself, friends, lovers and others
- ––– Intro
- Death, when you think about it
- ––– Wanted
- Benedek Regős
- Gvantsa Jishkariani
- Pamela Kuťáková
- ––– Project
- Noémi Szécsi
- Dóri Lázár
- Jana Bernartová
- ––– Profiles
- Teresa Margolles
- Tereza Zelenková
- Urszula Kluz-Knopek
- Korakrit Arunanondchai
- Dalibor Chatrný
- Andrey Anro
- The Party of the Dead
- Kairus
- Oreet Ashery
- ––– Interview
- Interview with Carl Öhman by Kateřina Marková Data of the Dead: What We Leave Behind for Future Generations
- ––– Theory
- To Live the Coming Death
- ––– Events
- Letters from the Pandemic Era
- ––– Institution profile
- How Can the Spirit of Free Creativity and Community Connection be Preserved During a Pandemic and at a Time When Knowledge Is Made into an Economy?
- ––– Exhibition
- Between Worlds
- ––– Book reviews
- Incalculable Loss
- Refocusing Ethnographic Museums Through Oceanic Lenses
- The Metabolic Museum
- Invisible Museum
- The Imagination of Otherness
- Potential History: Unlearning Imperialism
- ––– Artist's Books
- By the Sea: Photographs from the North East, 1976-1980
- Anonym 1968-1984
- Did You Know?
- White Gaze
- Peeing in Public: An inventory of the Wildest Urinators
- Myself, friends, lovers and others
Archive
- #42 food
- #41 postdigital photography
- #40 earthlings
- #39 delight, pain
- #38 death, when you think about it
- #37 uneven ground
- #36 new utopias
- #35 living with humans
- #34 archaeology of euphoria
- #33 investigation
- #32 Non-work
- #31 Body
- #30 Eye In The Sky
- #29 Contemplation
- #28 Cultura / Natura
- #27 Cars
- #26 Documentary Strategies
- #25 Popular Music
- #24 Seeing Is Believing
- #23 Artificial Worlds
- #22 Image and Text
- #21 On Photography
- #20 Public Art
- #19 Film
- #18 80'
- #17 Amateur Photography
- #16 Photography and Painting
- #15 Prague
- #14 Commerce
- #13 Family
- #12 Reconstruction
- #11 Performance
- #10 Eroticon
- #9 Architecture
- #8 Landscape
- #7 New Staged Photography
- #6 The Recycle Image
- #5 Borders Of Documentary
- #4 Intimacy
- #3 Transforming Of Symbol
- #2 Collective Authorship
- #1 Face