Fotograf Magazine

“Everything is erotic, isn’t it?” retorted Adam Holý in his questioningly innocent manner, when I asked him what connects his lightly ruffled nature photographs with nudes taken in the style of amateur S&M production. Eroticism, like an anagram of vitality, is nothing really new in photography. Edward Weston photographed peppers and toilets instead of women; Helmut Newton, on the contrary, photographed women to appear as if made by Audi. Adam Holý tries to find a Grand Unified Theory.

Holý is one of the most interesting fashion and style photographers in Prague. But for him, it’s not enough; photography is a sort of refined gluttony. As such, he is permanently driven to ask which of his pictures are really usable, and even more precisely: when, how and (above all) where? The non-problematic migration of his “shots” between high and low, between craftsmanship and spontaneity, makes the whole of his work an interesting study of diffusion and the mutual influence of the artist’s free and commercial work.

Holý is one of the most interesting fashion and style photographers in Prague. But for him, it’s not enough; photography is a sort of refined gluttony. As such, he is permanently driven to ask which of his pictures are really usable, and even more precisely: when, how and (above all) where? The non-problematic migration of his “shots” between high and low, between craftsmanship and spontaneity, makes the whole of his work an interesting study of diffusion and the mutual influence of the artist’s free and commercial work.

Holý gets inspiration wherever possible: Wolfgang Tillmans and Jürgen Teller, as well as Nan Goldin, Terry Richardson, but also František Drtikol or Karel Ludwig, and even the romanticizing (and also painterly) influence of the group Bratrstvo (Brotherhood). Holý not only builds on their foundations, but also confronts them. He adores genres, he loves to play with them and he relishes diving deeply into them. A profound symbolism of religious motifs and references to old painting follow from this, but alongside, we find a playful exploitation of the amateur “snapshot” style, which should help Holý to shake off professional ennui. But all the arrangements (whether confessed or not) are under strict control, at least from the perspective of the final selection.

As Holý proudly admits, photography is about unveiling; the rest is just idle chatter. He simply “takes shots” because he must. He “shoots” – in the true sense of the word — in the way the “angry young” post-war photographers projected themselves, both barbarously and romantically. Photography as a straightforwardly sensuous activity, full of desire and discreet violence –an authentic expression of a enchanted machismo.

Pavel Vančát