JAROSLAV KUČERA
26. 4. 2011
The discussion with the photographer Jaroslav Kučera will be devoted to his exhibition with the title Photographers of the War 1914 – 1918. Kučera is the exhibition curator, capturing by the eyes of four amateur photographers both the unsettled and ordinary moments of one of the bloodiest war conflicts – World War I. Exceptionally, due to Easter Holidays, we have transferred the traditional Monday´s discussion at the Leica Gallery Prague to Tuesday 26 April 2011. The time is not changed, we begin at 7 p.m.
The exhibition „Photographers of the War“ is a continuation of a breakthrough project „Through the World War I on Foot“ that was exhibited at the Prague Castle in 2009. The response to the project was unusual. Almost fifty people who own photographs, negatives, photographic plates, and even three-dimensional objects such as uniforms, eating utensils, diaries and others, responded to the advertisements with an appeal to track down further photos. The result is an exhibition of four, quite unknown soldiers – photographers who, in the fields of the World War I documented the ordinary everyday life in order to leave a testimony of that cruel time.
Documentarist Jaroslav Kučera will speak both about the compilation of the exhibition and the fate of the soldiers – photographers: Jan Neubert, Jan Rajman of Rožďalovice, Gustav Brož and Jan Myšička, whose photos were provided by their relatives or friends. After the war, following the disintegration of Austria-Hungary and the emergence of the new state of Czechoslovakia, namely until the year 1989, there was no interest in their testimony. The negatives and photographs were covered by dust in the museums and lofts, so only today, thanks to providence of the family members, we are able, almost step by step, to observe their fate during the hardship of that senseless war.
The exhibition at the Theresian Wing of the Old Royal Palace of the Prague Castle will take place from 29 April to 4 September 2011.