TEREZA Z DAVLE
7. 4. 2011 - 1. 5. 2011
Tereza of Davle, an authoress creating under a mysterious pseudonym, needs neither a concrete name nor a phone number in the telephone directory for presenting her creative qualities. Her black-and-white art is able to speak full-throated by itself.
In her latest author´s project named the Grandhotel, she has unfolded a hotel theme in the intimate nude field. Do not let be perplexed yourselves by the primarily trivial sonority of this subject matter. The hotel is an embodiment of intimate atmosphere, symbol of a quiet haven, and a welcome lovers´ hideaway. The hotel is both a woman´s embrace and a lap. The hotel is an analogy to any adventure, eroticism, and alluring mystique.
Therefore, in Tereza´s photos, we are watched, seduced, we dwell upon the women´s suave beauty with delight and are caressed by their sensual glamour of the first republic. The very walls of the hotel Evropa, soaked with their funhouse tarnished glory, are the narrator of life stories that are hiding behind the charismatic glimpses of the ladies and girls. In the course of time, an extraordinary hotel becomes a legend in the same way as a woman´s body, which has been a legend since long ago. It is an axis around which the whole universe revolves.
Tereza of Davle has taken full advantage of her theme. In the straightforward simplicity lie the magic and grace of her snapshots, not only thanks to the use of an analog camera and the consequent manual enlargement of each shot, which the authoress undoubtedly masters with skill, but, above all, thanks to her sense of sight.
It is the very photographer´s „sense of sight“, which matters most: if their vision is unique, the analog technology helps to unfold their exceptionality. If they are not unique, the analog cannot replace them nor save them. It is this very fact by which Tereza sharply stands out among a number of authors who pin their faith to the belief that the purely technical conception of analog photography will artistically redeem them. Tereza is faithful to her creative intention that remains superior to all technology, all technological inventions and innovations, let alone to digitalization.
Analog. Nobody would object to it 10 years ago. Today it could look like walking along the Václavské Square with an old telephone set dragging a cable behind you. However, this imaginary cable links the young lady and a twofold mother with a certain world in which old rules, habits and qualities are still valid, which people in the present-day hectic and nervy time can only dream of.
Tereza of Davle is natural, genuine, naive, mysterious, and, above all, entertaining. Her photos are not trivial clichés, but real expressions. They are not perfect and frequently do not flatter the academic rules of nude photography, but perhaps because of this, they are lively and vital. For Tereza of Davle, the lady walking with an ancient telephone to the Hotel Evropa, the absence of academism means a provoking freedom that leads to remarkable results. Her view of the world is a view through the camera lens. It is just sufficient to read in her stories.
„The cycle of photographs created in the Evropa Hotel has no solid conception. The only liaison is just the building in Václavské Square that fascinated me from the mid-´90s.The photos were coming into being in the last months, exclusively by analog cameras, and they are enlarged on barytic paper.In the photos, there are women in the age range of 15 to 50. Quite often, they are my neighbours I addressed, further they are ballet-dancers, actresses, students, waitresses … Most of my models (non-models) have no experience with posing. Each of these women inspired me in a different way. Therefore, I did not try to dress most of them into a certain period. This is the first exhibition that has been created to order – specially for the Leica Gallery Prague.”
Tereza z Davle
„The cycle of photographs created in the Evropa Hotel has no solid conception. The only liaison is just the building in Václavské Square that fascinated me from the mid-´90s.The photos were coming into being in the last months, exclusively by analog cameras, and they are enlarged on barytic paper.In the photos, there are women in the age range of 15 to 50. Quite often, they are my neighbours I addressed, further they are ballet-dancers, actresses, students, waitresses … Most of my models (non-models) have no experience with posing. Each of these women inspired me in a different way. Therefore, I did not try to dress most of them into a certain period. This is the first exhibition that has been created to order – specially for the Leica Gallery Prague.”
Tereza z Davle