In the course of almost thirty years, the photographer Ivan Pinkava (b. 1961) has created his own distinctive visual language, which can reasonably be identified with his own way of thinking about the world.
The figures and still lifes in his works intertwine. They are a modern mirroring of deeper thought processes following on from the language of traditional Western culture. Pinkava intentionally enters wellknown iconographic situations in order to change them, sometimes inconspicously, sometimes radically, jumbling, renaming, emptying, veiling, or making them stand out in another light. He blurs conventional meanings concealed behind the names of classical and biblical figures. In historical settings he finds something common to the present and future and true to both – namely, prefigurations of human uncertainty stemming from our own physical transitoriness.
Collections
* Kinsey Institute Art Collection
* Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris
* Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne
* Gernsheim Collection, Austin, Texas
* Victoria & Albert Museum, London
* Maison Européene de la Photographie, Paris
* Museum of Fine Arts of Houston
* Collection of PPF, Prague
* Museum of Art, Olomouc
* Museum of Decorative Arts (UMPRUM), Prague
* Moravian Gallery, Brno
Publications/Books
* Heroes
Introduction by Martin C. Putna, Prague, Kant, 2004 (Awarded The most beautiful Czech artistic publication of 2004), (Awarded The best photo book published in the central and eastern Europe 2003-2004 at Month of photography Bratislava)
* Il Nudo, Fra Ideale e Realita
Galleria d´Arte Moderna, Bologna 2004
* Gods Becoming Men
Edward Lucie-Smith, Frissiras Museum, Atheny 2004
* Politictí vezni 50. let
Galerie Langhans, Prague 2003
* Das Lexikon der Fotografen 1900 bis Heute
Knaur, Germany, 2002
* Ceská a slovenská fotografie 80. a 90 let 20. století
Muzeum umení Olomouc, 2002
* Black and White Photography
James Luciana, Rockport Publishers, Inc., Gloucester, 2000
* Czech Photography of the 1990s
Vladimír Birgus, Kant, Prague, 1999
* Memento Mori
V. Jirásek, R. Novák, I. Pinkava, text by Bohdan Chlíbec, TORST, Prague 1998
* Contemporary Czech and Slovak Photography
Aperture # 152, New York, 1998
* Certainty and Searching in Czech Photography of the 1990s
Vladimír Birgus, Miroslav Vojtechovský, Kant, Prague, 1997
* Dynastie - Ivan Pinkava
text Josef Kroutvor, ERM, Prague 1994
(Awarded The most beautiful Czech artistic publication of 1994)
* The sea inside the skin
Min Tanaka, photo J. Krejcí and I. Pinkava, TORST, Prague 1992
For more information, visit Ivan Pinkava's personal website at
www.ivanpinkava.com
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