Fotograf Magazine

Bernard Faucon arrived at the decision to devote his life to open creation by fits and turns. His loving grandmother – also an artist – gave her grandson a Semflex brand camera and thus taking pictures with colour film became a part of this growing man’s life…

“It’s a matter of comfort. I am always available.”

The year was 1972. Boulder, Colorado, USA. Thirteen-year-old Francesca Woodman just received a Yashica double reflex camera. She sat down comfortably on the couch, tossing her thick hair over her face and she pressed the self-timer…

Just a few years ago few people knew the work of Jano Pavlík (1963– 1988). Lack of literature, almost no exhibition activity, a hard way to access photographic legacy. A native son of the Slovak town, Snina, who came to study photography at FAMU in 1982 together with other Slovaks (later called the Slovak New Wave), and just five years later he interrupted his exceptional work forever with his voluntary death…

With a time gap of more than a quarter-century, it is clear that the situation of a person living originally under East European communist totalitarianism, who as an adult shifted from one jilted societal order to another (capitalism), can consider that a priceless life experience…

You once described yourself as a ‘curious amalgam’ of different cultures, a modest way of invoking a life story that has been crossed by some of the great fault lines of the twentieth century…

The candy-coloured embrace of two innocently frowning puppies in a collage, both sweet and at the same time wild, covered with rough brush strokes of coloration. The torn paper references one of Mark Morrisroe’s typical gestures, from which this early piece hails: brush strokes, cracks in paper, folds, creases and scratches; and primarily fingerprints and dust that he carried from the surface of the rough-handled negatives onto photographic paper…