#17 Amateur Photography
Amateurism, the theme of this issue, is a phenomenon that has been tied to photography not from the medium’s very beginning, but rather from the period when taking photographs became accessible to a broader range of social classes. At the start, photography was an exclusive, very demanding process (both operationally and cost-wise) that was however gradually simplified. Over time a business element entered the process: sellers not just of cameras, but also of photo materials, chemicals, etc. had an interest in the maximum expansion of the market and thus in the gradual simplification of process. The result of this effort was the gradual permeation of photography into a wide array of layers of society.
Our attempt here is that this issue recognize amateur photographers as an important source of great artistic talent that has made a place for itself in the artistic sphere and also to recognize the important societal role the amateur movement had in shaping society. We also attempt to give a new view of the creative work of one-time famous amateur artists, whose work has been forgotten and covered over by new trends. There is a dramatic change here in the view of amateur movements; this also because the photographic process has already become a global, daily ritual.
#37 uneven ground — Profiles
Karol Radziszewski

Radziszewski’s art, in its multidisciplinary medley, is driven in its roots by a longing to carve out a space of diversity and queer beauty out of misery. Be it the secret queer meeting spots in communist Poland or the place for alternative narratives on history, it is constantly craving for a less miserable world…
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Heji Shin

Although the German-Korean artist Heji Shin attained wider popularity through her photographs for the Spring/Summer 2017 collection of the New York-based brand Eckhaus Latta, which featured explicit images of couples of varying ethnicities and sexual orientations engaging in sexual acts, the true scandal arrived with her portraits of the American rapper Kanye West, who recently elicited controversy through his relationship with the incumbent president of the United States…
Read more#37 uneven ground — Profiles
Karolina Wojtas

Polish artist Karolina Wojtas doubtless has a lot of fun creating her photographs and installations. This usually seems inconsistent with the depth of thought her photographs suggest. Even so, this is exactly what her photographs are: a fluid mix of various kinds of humor, bizarre elements, practical jokes, children’s jokes, and bullying…
Read moreTaste Fotograf #37
#37 uneven ground — Profiles
Alžběta Bačíková

While Alžběta Bačíková’s experimental approach to documentary puts the transparency of the filmic medium in parenthesis, this self-reflexive attitude does not operate at the expense of creating an empathic relation between artist and protagonist, subject and viewer…
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Sidsel Meineche Hansen

One hot summer day, I happened to reach for H. G. Wells’s 1923 novel Men Like Gods. In it, Wells presents his idea of the world of Utopia. People here are precisely carved castings of ancient deities representing the ideal potential development of our society at some point millenia in the future…
Read moreContent
- ––– Profiles
- Martin Fryč
- Ivars Gravlejs
- Vojtěch Marek
- Václav Tvarůžka
- Viktor Frešo
- Jan Krhovský
- Jan Freiberg
- Lucie Králová
- Robert Carrithers
- Jáchym Kliment
- František Dostál
- Lucia Nimcová
- Joachim Schmid
- Miroslav Tichý
- Rudo Prekop
- Karel Kašpařík
- ––– Theory
- An Amateur: Noble Spirit - Flag Carrier - Outsider
- ––– Events
- 10th International Festival of Photography in Łódź
- ––– Reviews
- Mutating Medium: Gesture of Generational Oversaturation?
- Gianfranco Sanguinetti: Miroslav Tichý - Les Formes du Vrai / Forms of Truth. Kant, Prague 2010
- Pictorialism / Photography as Art 1890-1914
- Světlu vstříc / Towards Light
- The Mystical City of Viktor Kolář
- ––– History
- The Splendeurs et Miséres of the Hinges of Historiography
Archive
- #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