Current Affairs New photography exhibition documents final years of communism
Rundown buildings, empty shop-windows and ever-present grayness – that’s the focus of a new photography exhibition called ‘Tady bylo Husákovo’ – ‘This Once Was Husák’s Country’, which is now on display at Prague’s Louvre Gallery. The collection of photographs by Lubomír Kotek documents the atmosphere of Prague streets in the years preceding the Velvet Revolution.
Lubomír Kotek
The title of the exhibition – ‘This Once Was Husák’s Country’ –
refers to the last communist president Gustav Husák. The pictures were
taken in the mid-1980s and reveal the bleak atmosphere of the era. The
photographs are accompanied by personal commentaries written by Lubomír
Kotek’s friends, such as sociologist Jiřina Šiklová and writer Josef
Klíma.
At his exhibition at the Louvre Gallery, Kotek explained why he had decided to document the uneventful and bleak life in the communist era:
Photo: Lubomír Kotek
“First of all, it’s a tradition to document things around us in
the
Czech Republic. And second, I was friends with art historian Anna
Fárová,
who lost her job after signing Charter 77. There was a group of
photographers who cooperated with her. We discussed my work and she
motivated me to continue. She used to say: ‘this won’t be here
forever’. Of course at that time I didn’t believe it would ever end
and
I wanted to quit many times.”
Photo: Lubomír Kotek
Luckily, the photographer, who is 41, continued to record what he saw and
his pictures now reveal some extraordinary scenes from Prague under
communism. On his part, he says taking pictures helped him staying sane:
“The photographs helped me to survive the era. By taking the pictures, I was showing what was around us and pointing at things, while others pretended not to see what was going on and kept it inside. So I kept my head clear and I was in a better condition than many of my friends.”
Photo: Lubomír Kotek
Though the pictures were taken just a few years before the fall of
communism, Lubomír Kotek says no one was ready to look back in the years
that followed. Now, twenty years later, he thinks we are ready to
appreciate the change:
Photo: Lubomír Kotek
“The pictures bring back memories of course. When I dusted off the
old
photos after the years, I realized they were still very powerful. And I
think it is necessary to remind ourselves of the past times so they would
never come back.”
The exhibition Tady Bylo Husákovo runs until January 3, 2010.
