CZECHS, COLLECTED: Czech and Slovak photographers at FotoFest 1990 – present

It is only fitting in our multicultural Houston that we have a Czech Center Museum which shares the Czech and Slovak history, culture, art, and music with the city’s vibrant and inclusive community. All people have a special place in their heart where childhood ethnic memories, music, art, language, and humor (unique in the case of the Czechs) dwell. It is a thrilling moment indeed when a Czech encounters a person who truly appreciates not only the culture, place, and history of his or her home country, but also appreciates the nature and humor of the Czech people.

Wendy Watriss first went to Czechoslovakia in 1968 and found something special there, something she liked very much. She returned with her partner and FotoFest co-founder, Frederick Baldwin, many times in the 1980s and the following three decades – lending support to local artists, collaborating with curators, sponsoring forums, and fostering relationships with prominent institutions and figures of the country. In the 1980s, Wendy and Fred also brought something groundbreaking to Houston, something they named FotoFest, and over the next three decades, FotoFest has played a primary role in bringing Czech and Slovak photography to our city.

In 1989 the MFAH staged a groundbreaking exhibit, curated by Alison de Lima Greene and Anne Wilkes Tucker, titled CZECH MODERNISM: 1900-1945. That exhibit introduced Czech modern art to this country. The next year, Wendy and Fred dedicated the 1990 FotoFest Biennial to Czechoslovakian photography with an exhibit titled PERSPECTIVES, REAL AND IMAGINARY: NINETEEN CONTEMPORARY CZECHO-SLOVAK PHOTOGRAPHERS. During the 1998 Biennial, FotoFest presented ALTERED WORLDS CONTEMPORARY STAGED SLOVAK PHOTOGRAPHY. The curator was Lucia Benická, associated with the Tatranská galéria Poprad; the exhibit included Poprad and Bratislava artists: Robo Kočan, Pavel Pecha, Rudo Prekop, Vasil Stanko, Miro Švolík, Kamil Varga, Peter Župník. In 2003, Wendy Watriss curated an exhibit titled THE PHOTOGRAPHIC EYE with Czech artists Vojtěch V. Sláma and Igor Malijevský. She followed this FotoFest exhibition, with the 2009 exhibit NEW VISUALISM, featuring Štěpán Grygar and Fernando la Rosa. In 2011 Miro Švolík was one of three artists featured in the FotoFest exhibit A MATTER OF WIT, curated by Wendy Watriss. In 2019 Steven Evans, the current director of FotoFest, curated the VELVET GENERATION exhibit, which features the works of Vojtěch V. Sláma, Igor Malijevský, Gabriela Sauer Kolčavová and Roman Franc.

It is this history of FotoFest, championing Czech and Slovak photography, that the Czech Center Museum wants to celebrate with a new exhibition titled CZECHS, COLLECTED: CZECH AND SLOVAK PHOTOGRAPHERS AT FOTOFEST 1990-PRESENT. All the works in this exhibition are borrowed from private collections and they present unique perspectives. The artists’ works on display have been chosen by individuals, each of whom has a unique personality, sensibility, and approach to collecting. Their reasons for acquiring these images differ. Some find the photographs inspiring for their own work as artists, some respond to the humor in these works or their poetic beauty; others connect to their creativity and innovation. Yet, they all have responded to an image or images created by the Czech and Slovak artists in this show. Many of these works were collected as a result of FotoFest shows.

The Czech Republic and Slovakia are two small but mighty countries uniquely located in the heart of Europe. Brno, the largest city in the Eastern part of the Czech Republic, and where four of the artists in the exhibition live, was in the 9th and 10th century the center of the Great Moravian Empire. Prague, where the other three photographers work and live, was on two occasions the seat of the Great Roman Emperor. Science, art, and innovation have always thrived in the rich history of these places, and this exhibition of Czech and Slovak photography gives you a small peek into the souls of their people.

Pavel Baňka was born in 1941 in Prague, Czech Republic. He graduated from the Czech Technical University (1958–1963), in 1964–66 he was a member of the Czech beatnik group together with Václav Hrabě, Inka Machulková and Vlaďka Čerepková. Baňka started taking photography seriously only at the end of the 1970s, when he left his research job and started a career of a freelance photographer. Initially, he published in Czechoslovak interior design and architecture magazines and from the 1990s, he devoted himself exclusively to art photography.

In 1990, Baňka co-founded the Prague House of Photography and served as chairman of the board of directors for several years.  His long stays in the USA impacted his career, when he worked as a guest artist at universities including Ohio University in 1992-93, and became represented by several important galleries in Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York.  From 1995, Baňka has been leading the Atelier of Photography, College of Applied Arts and Design in Ústí nad Labem. In 2002, he co-founded the Fotograf magazine and manages it to this day.

Between 2005-2010, Baňka was serving as Visiting Professor for European Photography, University of Derby, UK.  In 2009, together with colleagues from the FOTOGRAF magazine, Baňka founded a new initiative in the field of photography - Fotograf Gallery, a non-profit center for photography and contemporary art, focused on exhibitions of photography by young photographers and education of the public in the field of photography.  

Pavel Baňka was featured at FotoFest 1990 – Perspectives, Real and Imaginary: Nineteen Contemporary Czechoslovak Photographers curated by Wendy Watriss and Frederic C. Baldwin, and exhibited at FotoFest Biannual in 2000. He was a member of the international jury of portfolio reviewers at FotoFest 1992, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2004, 2006, 2008, and 2010.  As The Guardian put it, “With his surreal juxtapositions and abstractions, Pavel Baňka photographs a world on the edge of dreams.”  Pavel Baňka lives and works in Prague.

Roman Franc was born in 1983 in Brno, Czech Republic. He studied social sciences and physical education at Masaryk University’s School of Education in Brno, earning an M.A. in 2008, followed by an M.F.A. in Photography in 2015 from the Institute of Creative Photography, Silesian University, Opava, Czech Republic, where he continued in a doctoral program. Currently, Franc is an external teacher at the Institute of Creative Photography of the Silesian University. 

Franc worked on projects with the office of the Czech President Václav Havel. He has since devoted himself to freelance photography and enjoys working with the Flexaret 6x6 medium-format camera. He focuses on non-traditional portrait and staged photography. 

Franc organizes and teaches photography courses and workshops for private and public institutions, with an emphasis on inspirational environments and experiences.  Franc has exhibited in the United States and the United Kingdom.  His photographs are in collections of the Library of Congress in Washington DC, the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro, and Moravian Gallery Brno. 

Franc was featured in the FotoFest Houston exhibition Velvet Generation in 2019, curated by Steven Evans. He is an author and co-author of several books, including My Name Is Hungry Buffalo which was selected in 2017 as one of most beautiful books in the Czech Republic.

Štěpán Grygar was born in 1955 in Prague, Czech Republic. In 1979, he graduated from the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU), where he later led the Studio of Art Photography, from 2002 - 2014. In 2008, he was appointed professor.  In 2012 – 2015, Grygar was an external examiner at IADT, Dun Laoghaire, Dublin, Ireland. From 2014 – 2023, Grygar was the head of studio at the School of Design and Art of Ladislav Sutnar. He has had more than 50 solo exhibitions, including in Prague, Bratislava, Budapest, Munich, London and Houston.

Grygar was featured in FotoFest 1990 - Perspectives, Real and Imaginary: Nineteen Contemporary Czechoslovak Photographers curated by Wendy Watriss and Frederic C. Baldwin, and in 2009 in New Visualism under the curator Wendy Watriss.  Grygar is represented in several prime collections, including Centre G. Pompidou, Paris, Bibliotèque Nationale, Paris, Museum Ludwig, Köln, The University of Texas at Austin, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago. This year he is featured in an exhibition at the Bibliotèque Nationale de France in Paris. 

Grygar's photographs form an important part of the Czech art scene. His work from the mid-1970s was classified as “Czech photographic visualism”, and during the 1980s he developed a synthesis of conceptual approach and reflection or analysis of the photographic medium. Grygar's work can be placed into the post-conceptual tendencies of Czech photography, stimulated by minimalism. In recent years, his work has been characterized by a strong inclination towards the use of color as an important expressive element, working frequently with bright surfaces and strong color becoming an important expressive element.

Igor Malijevský was born in 1970 in Prague, Czech Republic. He graduated in theoretical physics and studied philosophy at Charles University, but since the mid-1990s he has devoted himself primarily to photography and writing.

Malijevský has published several collections of poems and short stories, and his writings can be found in several anthologies, including Best European Fiction 2018.  His most recently published book is the novel Otevřený prostor (Open Plan, 2019).  Malijevský co-established and leads EKG, a well-known monthly literary cabaret in Prague.  His books and poems are based on a poetic understanding of our everyday reality, a style he describes as photography in words.  His works have been translated into Russian, English, Polish, German and other languages.

In his photographic work, Malijevský primarily creates unmanipulated black-and-white photographs naturally continuing the strong tradition of poetic realism in Czech photography. Malijevský uses only film cameras and prints the black-and-white images himself. When an edition is finished, Malijevský destroys the negatives.

In 2003, Malijevský was featured in an exhibit titled The Photographic Eye, curated by Wendy Watriss, and in 2019 in the FotoFest Houston exhibition Velvet Generation, curated by Steven Evans.  His work is represented in collections of Meseet for Fotokunst, Odense, Denmark, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Sarah Morhland Collection, New York, and John Cleary Collection, Houston. 

Gabriela Sauer Kolčavová was born in 1977 in Boskovice, Czech Republic, where she resides and works as a freelance artist and lecturer. In 2000, she graduated from the Masaryk University School of Education in Brno, Czech Republic, with an M.A. in English and Fine Arts. Her relationship to the U.S. is rooted in her formal photographic education at the University of North Texas, where she received an M.F.A. in Fine Art Photography in 2004.

Kolčavová documents personal relationships in the form of a nonlinear travelogue, chronicling her travels in both the Czech Republic and the U.S. Kolčavová photographs tranquil moments between friends in rural settings, and her subjects are deeply, entirely at leisure. Kolčavová enjoys the limitless possibilities of the photographic medium—working with large-format cameras, experimenting with cameraless photography, and alternative photographic processes.

Kolčavová teaches and organizes photography lectures and workshops at public and private institutions.  Her photographs have been exhibited at international solo and group exhibitions in the United States, France, Poland, Russia, China, and the Czech Republic. Kolčavová’s work is represented in photography collections including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and George Eastman House in Rochester, NY.  In 2019, Kolčavová was featured in the FotoFest Houston exhibition Velvet Generation, curated by Steven Evans. 

Vojtěch Sláma was born in 1974 in Brno, Czech Republic. He studied at the School of Artistic Crafts in Brno and in 2009, he received an M.F.A. from the Institute of Creative Photography, School of Arts and Sciences, Silesian University in Opava. 

The twin-lens reflex camera, related to the creative philosophy of the Czech Parallax Group, of which Sláma was a founding member, has remained a paramount tool for his work up to the present day. Sláma does not limit himself to the square format, his creative process encompasses a range of formats from 35 mm to 13x18 cm. He is represented by Klompching Gallery in New York, Photographs Do Not Bend Gallery in Dallas, and See+ Gallery in Beijing.

Sláma was featured in a 2003 exhibit titled The Photographic Eye, curated by Wendy Watriss, and in the FotoFest Houston exhibition Velvet Generation in 2019, curated by Steven Evans.  Sláma views traveling as an unfinished process, during which collections like India Tourist, Hájenka-Pulkov, and American Tourister were created. Another Sláma’s source of inspiration is interior design, reconstructing old houses, and building custom bicycles. 

At present Sláma prefers going back to his beginnings, using mostly 35mm film in landscape orientation. He lives in Brno in an apartment above Café Flexaret that he opened in 2013 as a place for jazz and folk concerts, photography exhibitions, and other pleasures, and teaches at the School of Artistic Crafts in Brno.

Miro Švolík was born in Zlaté Moravce, Slovakia, in 1960. He lives in Prague, Czech Republic. He graduated from the School for Applied Arts in Bratislava in 1979 where he studied applied photography. In 1987, he graduated from the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU), Prague, and from that time has worked as a freelance art photographer.

Since 2009, Švolík has been the head of the Department of Photography and New Media at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design (VŠVU) in Bratislava, Slovakia.  In 1990, he was given the Young Photographer Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography (ICP), New York, NY.  Since 1984, Švolík has had 70 solo exhibitions and participated in approximately 200 group shows. He has exhibited his photographs in various European countries and several times in the U.S.

Švolík was featured in FotoFest 1990 - Perspectives, Real and Imaginary: Nineteen Contemporary Czechoslovak Photographers curated by Wendy Watriss and Frederic C. Baldwin, in FotoFest 1998 - Altered Worlds: Contemporary Slovak Staged Photography, and in the 2011 show A Matter of Wit curated by Wendy Watriss. 

In 2005, Švolík published The Way to the Centre, a book of black and white film photographs. His digital photographs were published in 2010 in a catalog from his show in Bratislava titled Big Woman Little Man.  Švolík’s photographs are represented in major collections, including MOMA New York, Art Institute Chicago, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.