Miroslav Tichý

[Dave_B]

It was a nice Sunday in NYC and we went to the International Center of Photography. There were a number of interesting exhibits there but the one that got my attention was by Miroslav Tichý. All the gear heads on this forum (myself included) should see the cameras and other stuff he used to take pictures. To call his equipment junk gives junk a bad name. As an example, he took pieces of plastic and polished lenses out of it using toothpaste. Yet despite the fact that he used trash to assemble cameras that he then used to take street photos, he made some arresting shots. The movie about him and his art is pretty amazing. I recommend the ICP to anyone who finds themselves in NYC.
Cheers,
Dave B.

[Ash]

Seen a lot about him over the past few years. By a lot I mean the same stuff over and over.

Kinda cool but I'm not sure if he's just a creation of an elitist art group to make them seem like they really think outside the box.

[Kirk Gittings]

His work seems like all technique (the cult of minimal technique that is) and no vision to me.

[Jay DeFehr]

I find Tichy very interesting. Not just Tichy the person, or Tichy the artist, but Tichy the phenomenon. There are so many layers to consider, and each seems to contradict the next, and to swing the pendulum of validity one way or the other. I suspect Tichy is like most of us, and there is no one, true Tichy, but instead a complex personality with a varied history and a unique perspective based on his cumulative experience. Tichy is interesting because whether we admire him, or his work, or we don't, Tichy doesn't make it easy or simple for us to feel one way or the other about him, or his work. I'm not at all surprised he makes some photographers uncomfortable, and I'm not surprised his work resonates with some other photographers. Whatever one thinks or feels about Tichy's photos, one should admit they're intensely and obsessively personal, and our projections are our own.

[Kirk Gittings]

Whatever one thinks or feels about Tichy's photos, one should admit they're intensely and obsessively personal, and our projections are our own.

This amounts to saying something totally obvious though, because all art work is intensively personal and all our projections are always are own. So what?

[Jay DeFehr]

I wish I could say that all my work is intensely personal, but it's not. Some of it is done for a variety of reasons that make it less than so. I meant to say that Tichy forces us to confront our projections in ways that can be uncomfortable. I'm not an art critic, or a psychologist or sociologist, or any kind of ologist, so please take my comments in the spirit in which they were intended; as the observations of a photographer who wants to do meaningful work, and to understand the works of other photographers. I often fall short on both counts.

[CarstenW]

Kirk, all work may be personal in some sense, but it isn't all intense. For example, while I like the genre, there is hardly anything personal left in 99% of photos in the "Great American Landscape" genre, and just a very few people who are really following a different path. Another example of someone who manages to create his very own feeling is Michael Ackermann. You may not like his work, but you will never mistake it for the work of another mini-Ansel.

[csant]

This amounts to saying something totally obvious though, because all art work is intensively personal and all our projections are always are own. So what?

Kirk, I guess that was the point - it is art work, in the most intense meaning of that concept. Whether one likes this work or not, is irrelevant. (I find it very inspiring and am very much attracted to what he does, just to find out each time I get closer that it deeply disappoints me, over and over again, each time the same way).

[jb7]

I'd have to agree with the comments of the people who find the work interesting,
rather than those who would prefer to diminish and dismiss it, or reduce it to an invention of a coterie of curators.

If it is true that he ground his own optics from plastic,
in addition to creating very beautiful and sculptural machines in which to expose film,
then I just can't see how it could be dismissed as an example of "cult of minimal technique".

I did google that phrase, it appears once, on this page, so I presume we can refer to Tichý as being the founder-
if we can agree that making your own cameras, and grinding your own lenses,
to produce very specific pictures, constitutes an example of 'minimal technique'.

I'd also agree wholeheartedly with Carsten's point-
although all comment is more likely to expose our own prejudice than provide illumination, unfortunately-

[GPS]

...
Yet despite the fact that he used trash to assemble cameras that he then used to take street photos, he made some arresting shots. The movie about him and his art is pretty amazing. I recommend the ICP to anyone who finds themselves in NYC.
Cheers,
Dave B.

"De gustibus et coloribus non est disputandum"
What I admire on his photography is the fact that he tries to catch the "fleeting" in a genial way - even when caught in his pictures, it is still that - the "fleeting"...