Jasanský & Polák
Abstraction Cycle
Artist
Jasanský & Polák
(1985, Praha), Czech
Original Title
Abstraction Cycle
Date1994-1996
Mediumsilver gelatine print on baryta paper
Dimensions106 × 75 cm
Classificationsphotograph
Credit LineLong-term loan from the SVIT Gallery, Prague
Image Copyright
Lukáš Jasanský / Martin Polák
DescriptionSince the late 1980s, the artistic duo Lukáš Jasanský and Martin Polák have been documenting the Czech urban environment and landscape during its transition from the communist system to capitalism. Thanks to their characteristic conceptual method centered around the analysis of art and society, they managed to open new spaces for photography. Their relatively vast photographic series are based around a simple typology and archiving method, and beg questions regarding contrast. This gives their works a characteristic style.
The cycle Abstraction was created in the first half of the 1990s and is based on the reductive aesthetic and the need to reflect the means of artistic work. It simultaneously demythologises art insofar as it features randomly found or quotidian objects. The cycle shows a particular sense of humor and irony which constitute a central means of expression for the duo.
Lukáš Jasanský (*1965, Prague) and Martin Polák (*1966, Prague) first met at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague in the department of photography, and since 1985 they have been developing their own conceptual method of collaboration. During 1986–1993 they studied at the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. They at first created their personal work in mutual dialogue, but their collaboration is based in their shared perception of reality and their stances towards the technical nature of photography Both consciously resigned on the methods and values of so-called “artistic photography.” They express themselves by means of photographic cycles in which they employ principles of repetition, seriality and ironic distance. They thematise the stereotypes of commercial photography, but also process banal, ugly, and consciously pedestrian motifs. The duo of Jasanský and Polák soon became a fixture on the Czech art scene. Already before 1989, they were featured in their first foreign exhibition, and in the 1990s they exhibited at a number of important international exhibitions, mostly due to the efforts of curator Francesco Bonami.
The cycle Abstraction was created in the first half of the 1990s and is based on the reductive aesthetic and the need to reflect the means of artistic work. It simultaneously demythologises art insofar as it features randomly found or quotidian objects. The cycle shows a particular sense of humor and irony which constitute a central means of expression for the duo.
Lukáš Jasanský (*1965, Prague) and Martin Polák (*1966, Prague) first met at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague in the department of photography, and since 1985 they have been developing their own conceptual method of collaboration. During 1986–1993 they studied at the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. They at first created their personal work in mutual dialogue, but their collaboration is based in their shared perception of reality and their stances towards the technical nature of photography Both consciously resigned on the methods and values of so-called “artistic photography.” They express themselves by means of photographic cycles in which they employ principles of repetition, seriality and ironic distance. They thematise the stereotypes of commercial photography, but also process banal, ugly, and consciously pedestrian motifs. The duo of Jasanský and Polák soon became a fixture on the Czech art scene. Already before 1989, they were featured in their first foreign exhibition, and in the 1990s they exhibited at a number of important international exhibitions, mostly due to the efforts of curator Francesco Bonami.
Related/Related
