Jasanský & Polák
Untitled
Artist
Jasanský & Polák
(1985, Praha), Czech
Original Title
Untitled
From the seriesColour Photography
Date2010
Mediumlambda print on paper, glass
Dimensions99,5 × 79 × 3 cm
Classificationsphotograph
Credit LineKunsthalle Praha
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 Coloured Photographs works with a random contrast of wooden hangers and a melon. The attention is thus focused on every-day, banal objects, which is a central aspect of their aesthetic. By means of the photographic record, they raise them to the level of artefacts reminiscent of painterly still lifes, whose exceptionality was often based on their masterful painting technique. Their ironic and humorous approach thus de-mythologises the canon and the means of traditional art and robs them of their seeming exceptionality.
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 Coloured Photographs works with a random contrast of wooden hangers and a melon. The attention is thus focused on every-day, banal objects, which is a central aspect of their aesthetic. By means of the photographic record, they raise them to the level of artefacts reminiscent of painterly still lifes, whose exceptionality was often based on their masterful painting technique. Their ironic and humorous approach thus de-mythologises the canon and the means of traditional art and robs them of their seeming exceptionality.
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.
