French Connection at the Czech Centre

"French Connection - Pierre Daguin and Markéta Othová - Czech Centre London, 20. 6. – 31. 8. 2001


The Czech Centre in London is this
summer showing a series of 28 pairs of photographs by Pierre Daguin by Markéta Othová. The series explores the old question of how two people can approach the same thing in entirely different ways. Or to put it another way: Is it possible for two different artists to make two identical
photographs? The two photographers and
curator Andrée Cooke have arranged pairs of images according to formal similarities in their complementary motifs. But the photographs themselves were not made intentionally; they were chosen from the finished work the photographers had amassed over several years: Daguin’s
color photographs were all created during the last three years while Othova’s black and white prints detail the period from 1994 to 2001.
Pierre Daguin records the immediate world around him in its commonplace and, in fact, tedious forms: his photographs feel like lopped-off chunks of reality, like casually grabbed snapshots. They might as well be made that way: the photographer walks the streets with his camera, on the hunt for fragments of the everyday. On the other hand, Markéta Othová’s work shows careful composition, revealing
layers of significance and more possibilities of reading. The almost abstract
images are rendered in tones of gray, with a strongly esthetic motivation; they suggest beauty is still of relevance in contemporary art. An ordinary motif gains depth with the angle of the photographer’s view, the scale of the format and its own (lack of) color.
In this connection, it is interesting to repeat Yolanda Zappaterre’s observation in a recent review that color photography has traditionally been identified with trivial expressions of popular culture, while black and white pictures are more often regarded as serious art. Perhaps the perceived contrast of the two artists’ work spring partially from an established prejudice in the viewer. Nonetheless, through her more deliberate approach, Othova seems to locate more of the mystery beneath her subjects’ superficial banality.
This exhibition continues the consistently good program put out by the Czech Centre in London. Czech Centers are managed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and they’re supposed to support and promote cultural, trade and travel contacts between the Czech Republic and other countries. Fortunately, rather than presenting the Czech Republic as a cute slice of history with cheap beer. The London Centre is one of the more active, working hard to present contemporary Czech art, design, and architecture. Located in a lively neighborhood that is at the same time home to important institutions, the Centre also opened a Czech architecture club, including a library
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01.03.2001