Miroslav Tichý dies at age 85

Miroslav Tichý (November 20, 1926 – April 12, 2011) was a photographer who from the 1960s to 1985 took thousands of surreptitious pictures of women in his hometown of Kyjov in the Chech Republic, using homemade cameras constructed of cardboard tubes, tin cans and other at-hand materials. Most of his subjects were unaware they are being photographed. A few struck beauty-pageant poses when they sighted him, perhaps not realizing 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, he 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, Tichý was considered a dissident and badly treated. His photographs remained largely unknown until an exhibition was held for him in 2004. Tichý did not attend exhibitions, and lived a life of self-sufficiency and freedom from the standards of society.

Tichý died last Tuesday. April 12th, 2011 in Kyjov.

Miroslav Tichý was represented by Galerie Susanne Zander.
www.galerie-susanne-zander.com

ART FAIRS Galerie Susanne Zander @ ART COLOGNE 2011

Galerie Susanne Zander presents:

George Widener
Chris Hipkiss
Miroslav Tichy
Horst Ademeit
Aurel Iselstöger


Visit us in hall 11.3 - booth C40

opening: April 12th, 5 - 9 pm

13-16 April 2011: daily from 12 a.m. to 8 p.m.
17 April 2011: from 12 a.m. to 6 p.m.

www.artcologne.com

EXHIBITION Tichy at the gallery of the Braunschweig University of Arts

Photographs and Illustrations
13th April - 13th Mai 2011

opening: April 12, 2011, 7 pm

Miroslav Tichý himself never cared to be in the limelight, he sought neither to be exhibited nor to be published. It simply did not seem desirable to him. He repeatedly declared that the world was a mere pretense, an illusion, in which we perceive only that what we want to perceive

In the late 1940s, following his training at the Prague Academy of Fine Arts, Tichý started out as a painter and illustrator. However, the totalitarian conditions surrounding him paired with personal experiences meant that he increasingly alienated himself from the official art and cultural scene. Eventually, Tichý withdrew completely from the public eye and one day began to take photographs.

As time went on, he increasingly neglected his appearance, growing a beard, leaving his hair long and matted, his clothes mere rags. Children were mostly afraid of him to start with. They believed that his photographic equipment was fake and that, in reality, he was not a photographer at all. His apartment had the look and feel of a crazy inventor’s workshop. There was no heating, meaning that the winters were damp and cold. There were pictures, illustrations and photographs strewn about the floor, collecting mold. But this was not important to him. Tichý who was born in a small village in Moravia on November 20, 1926 has today grown to be more amicable; he no longer scares curious visitors away with a battleaxe. He stopped taking pictures in the early 1990s. The ball got rolling several years ago when the nephew of an old friend convinced him to hold his first exhibition and Harald Szeemann presented him at the 2004 Bienal Internacional de Arte Contemporaneo in Seville. The world has taken an interest in the old “Samurai” ever since.

Welcoming address:
Prof. Dr. Hubertus v. Amelunxen, President of the Braunschweig University of Art
Introduction: Prof. Dr. Andreas Bee, Curator of the exhibition


Mon–Fri 1–6 pm, Thu 1–8 pm
Closed on public holidays

Hochschule fuer Bildende Kuenste Braunschweig/Braunschweig University of Art
Johannes-Selenka-Platz 1
38118 Braunschweig Germany.

www.hbk-bs.de/en/aktuell