The Photographers’ Gallery presents Jan Svoboda: Against the Light (2020)

Against the Light marks the first retrospective of Czech photographer, Jan Svoboda (1934–1990) outside of his home country. His groundbreaking experiments with form rank him as one of the world’s pioneers of photographic appropriation, and forerunners of conceptual photography. Svoboda’s work sought to redefine the language of photography in relation to painting and sculpture, bridging the traditions of Symbolism and Romanticism with the self-reflexive tendencies of late Modernism.

Jan Svoboda began experimenting with photography in the late 1950s, initially using it to illustrate his own poetry. Strongly inspired by fellow Czech photographer, Josef Sudek, Svoboda’s early work encompassed systematic observations of suburban Prague, as well as metaphysically charged still lifes. In 1963 Svoboda was accepted as the only photographer into Máj, one of the few avant-garde artists groups in communist Czechoslovakia, bringing him into contact with other important artists such as Zdeněk Palcr, Stanislav Kolíbal and Jan Švankmajer.

By the end of the 1960s, Svoboda’s work – almost completely studio-based – began to interrogate the boundaries of the photographic image itself. Series’ such as ‘Halves or An Attempt at an Ideal Proportion’ played with process, composition and tonality while questioning the physical substance of the photographic work. Between 1969 and 1972, Svoboda produced some of his most radical and philosophically self-reflexive works. For example, ‘The Other Side of a Photograph’ (1969), or series’ including ‘Picture That Will Not Return’, show him breaking conventions by focusing on the reverse side of the image, or photographs ripped up on his studio floor.

The original exhibition showed over 50 vintage works, some returning to The Photographers’ Gallery after 38 years following the first exhibition of Jan Svoboda in the UK staged here in 1982.

The exhibition is curated by Pavel Vančát, with Clare Grafik, Head of Exhibitions at The Photographers’ Gallery. Organised in collaboration with the Moravian Gallery in Brno, Czech Republic. Sponsored by KKCG Investment Group. With thanks to the Embassy of the Czech Republic in London and the Czech Centre. A retrospective publication ‘Jan Svoboda: I’m Not a Photographer’ is available from the Bookshop on the lower ground floor, along with a selection of publications by modern and contemporary Czech artists. Our talks and events programme includes a 6-week course ‘Looking East: Photography in Central and Eastern Europe in the 1930s–90s’, please visit www.tpg.org.uk for more information. Contemporary Jan Svoboda estate editions are available from the Print Sales Gallery on the lower ground floor.

Virtual Tour with Clare Grafik, Head of Exhibitions at The Photographer's Gallery

Join Clare Grafik, Head of Exhibitions at The Photographer's Gallery as she recaptures Jan Svoboda's exhibition Against the Light.