Miroslav Tichy, Topless Woman, Original Photograph, 1970s for sale at Pamono

Description

Miroslav Tichy (1926 – 2011)

Topless Woman

Unique Vintage Gelatin Silver print

104 x 147 mm

Good condition (as usual for the artist, taken by completely home-made camera and home-printed)

THE ARTIST

Miroslav Tich (1926 2011) was a photographer who from the 1960s until 1985 took thousands of surreptitious pictures of women in his hometown of Kyjov in the Czech Republic, using homemade cameras constructed of cardboard tubes, tin cans and other at-hand materials. Most of his subjects were unaware that they were being photographed. A few struck beauty-pageant poses when they sighted Tich, perhaps not realising that the parody of a camera he carried was real.

His soft focus, fleeting glimpses of the women of Kyjov are skewed, spotted and badly printed flawed by the limitations of his primitive equipment and a series of deliberate processing mistakes meant to add poetic imperfections.

Of his technical methods, Tichy has said, “First of all, you have to have a bad camera”, and, “If you want to be famous, you must do something more badly than anybody in the entire world.”

During the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia, Tich was considered a dissident and was badly treated by the government. His photographs remained largely unknown until an exhibition was held for him in 2004. Tich did not attend exhibitions, and lived a life of self-sufficiency and freedom from the standards of society.

THEMES and EXHIBITIONS (Selected)

Miroslav Tichy is worldwide considered one of the most important spontaneous erotic photographers.

Tich’s work was largely unknown until his photographs were shown at the 2004 Biennial of Contemporary Art in Seville. Tich’s work won the Rencontres d’Arles 2005 New Discovery Award. In 2005, he had a major retrospective at the Kunsthaus in Zurich, another at the Pompidou Centre in 2008.

In February 2010, Tich had a solo show at the International Center of Photography in New York City. The exhibition featured 100 photographs, the film “Miroslav Tich: Tarzan Retired,” and two large vitrines exhibiting dusty and grimy piles of photographs, homemade cameras, lamps, and rolls of undeveloped film. In its review, The New York Times thought his anti-modernist style was representative of the nonviolent subversion practiced by Czech students and artists under the Soviet regime, and called his photographs an “uncanny fusion of eroticism, paranoia and deliberation” that is “mildly disturbing [but also] intensely fascinating”.

2013: Homage to Miroslav Tich, Prague Biennale, Prague, Czech Republic
2012: “L’Homme la Mauvaise Camra”, Pascal Polar Gallery, Brussels, Belgium
2012: “The Artist with the Bad Camera”, Moscow House of Photography, Moscow, Russia
2011: “Sun Screen”, Horton Gallery, New York City, United States
2011: “Miroslav Tich, Retrospettiva”, SI Fest, Savignano sul Rubicone, Italy
2010: “Miroslav Tich”, International Centre of Photography, New York City, United States
2009: “Miroslav Tich. Mirography”, Ivorypress Art Space, Madrid, Spain
2008: “Miroslav Tich”, Centre Georges Pompidou, Muse national dArt Moderne, Paris, France
2008: “Miroslav Tich”, Kunsthaus Bregenz, KUB Billboards, Bregenz, Austria
2008: “Miroslav Tich”, Museum of Modern Art (MMK), Frankfurt, Germany
2007: “Miroslav Tich”, Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2007: “Miroslav Tich”, Beijing Art Now Gallery, Beijing, China
2007: “Miroslav Tich”, Beijing Art Now Gallery, Shanghai, China
2006: “Miroslav Tich”, Brno House of Art, Brno, Czech Republic
2005: “Miroslav Tich”, Kunsthaus, Zurich, Switzerland