Czech Surrealism Photography and Emila Medková
Everyone has heard of the Surrealists, thanks to Salvador Dali, and if you look deeper, then you would hear of the French Surrealists, and find also the works of Surrealist Photography made by legendary photographers such as Man Ray, or Cartier-Bresson, and Eugene Atget. This is just scratching the surface, because further east, you will discover the Czech tradition of Surrealist Photography, which has only exhibited on rare occasion outside of the Czech Republic. While this Surrealist Photography was made famous by the Frenchies, the Czech counterpart was nonetheless intriguing and unique. Of course there were many similarities, such as the relative popularity of Surrealism post WWII, French Surrealism more or less just fizzled out, while the Czechs were forced underground until after the Velvet Revolution of 1989. But before I will go into a compare and contrasting tangent, I want to introduce the character who initially introduced me to the Czech tradition, one Emila Medková, who is quite an intriguing photographer and whom has played a central role. Medková's work was of "bitter humor" and "documented... the social reality it confronted, [it] was this real here-and-now of the everyday environment around her." -Krzysztof Fijalkowski. The most effective thing about Surrealist Photography that separates it from its painting counter-part, is that the images are taken from reality. This could not be accomplished nowadays, what with the digital medium and all, Surrealist Digital Photography would be more similar to Surrealist Painters, which seems to be recurring in contemporary work by digital artists, although it probably doesn't claim to fall under that category. anyway, Emila Medková is cool and you should check her out today.
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