Koudelka exhibit shares stunning career
Retrospective exhibits for artists who have enjoyed long and fruitful careers are a treat because one can see the evolution that their work went through over the arc of their career. At a Picasso retrospective, the transition between blue, cubist and surrealist is the real star of the exhibit. At the new Josef Koudelka exhibit at the Getty Center, one marvels not only at the striking shifts his career took, but also at the sheer variation in the subject matter he chose to portray.
Major influence · Josef Koudelka covered the 1968 Warsaw Pact Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, bringing its images to the world. – Photo courtesy of J. Paul Getty Museum
The Czech photographer made his fame by documenting the Soviet 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of his home country, but his exhibit shows periods of fascination with the daily life of the Romani people, the effects the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the impact humans have on the environment.
The exhibit unfolds chronologically through Koudelka’s life. The first room presents his early photography, including some very interesting photographic experiments. It is, however, when a visitor arrives at the next room, showcasing his work with the Romani, that Koudelka’s powerful touch begins to emerge. The moments he was able to capture in the lives of the Romani people show a sharp eye for capturing evocative, powerful images.
Though these first images begin to show his talent, it is the next room covering his work in the 1968 invasion where one can see Koudelka’s ability in full display. These images would have been important regardless of quality, as they were one of the few to make it out to the West after the Soviets took over Czechoslovakia. But, the pictures are not powerful simply because Koudelka was in the right place at the right time. His talent for capturing the intensity of the moment is never as obvious as in this part of the exhibit. The outrage in the faces of the young Czechs confronting the oncoming Soviet tanks is palpable, and the tension is present in every desperate shot. The story of hardship accompanying these photographs makes their quality all the more impactful. It took a year for Koudelka to smuggle his photographs out of the country to be published under the pseudonym P.P., which stood for Prague Photographer. Eventually, Koudelka left Czechoslovakia and sought asylum in France, but his documentation was destroyed, causing him to end up without an official country. He was declared to be in “Nationality Doubtful” status, a decision that gave the exhibit its name.
The way the photographs are presented adds to the impact of this section. The images are packed close together and the room is dark except for the images themselves creating an effect of energy where the photos seem to charge into each other, maintaining a consistently manic energy.
The talents forged in the fires of the Soviet invasion shows in his work from after leaving his home country. Another series of photographs shows daily life in France, Ireland, Spain and other parts of Europe. Koudelka has an almost preternatural ability for being at the right place in the right time.
Advancing through the exhibit, visitors encounter the central hall next. There is an 80-foot-long installation through the center of the floor of the great central hall. Its presence is jarring, mirroring the drastic shift in the focus of his work. The photographs from this part of his career onward change drastically in terms of subject matter. There isn’t a single person visible in the rest of the exhibit. For a photographer who so expertly captured the spirit of the people in his photographs, this shift is a bold one. The center divider, impossible to ignore, features a series of his next project: panoramic picture depicting different areas where the influence of men have affected the environment. One is a former forest with only a few trees left, another is of a mound of ash. The pictures lack the immediate action that his earlier works showcased, but they remain powerful in a different sort of way. His keen eye is still obvious and his new focus is achieved admirably.
Again, the setup of the exhibit itself mirrors this tonal shift in the photos. The photos are larger and more sparsely placed on the walls of the much bigger room. This gives the subject matter in this area a stoic feel. This stoicism continues in the final section depicting different landscapes affected by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Koudelka finished this project last year, and the sparse photographs focus again on the landscapes of the area, ignoring completely the people that inhabit them.
The tonal shift in the middle of Koudelka’s career is striking but the bodies of work on both sides of the rift are equally impressive in their respective ways. The Getty presents these different periods with a steady hand while mimicking the changing tones in his work resulting in a well-crafted, can’t-miss exhibition.