A maker of junk cameras
From the crumbling house in Kyjov left to him by his parents Tichý has often said “Woman is my inspiration. Nothing else interests me. I’ve never got involved with women. Erotica is just a dream anyway”. Over several decades the eccentric Tichý would go out every day with his homemade camera made from various spools, boxes, wires and spectacle lenses to create thousands of images of women, especially through the fence at the local swimming pool.
Tichý worked in a self-imposed internal exile in which he maintained absolute freedom. In Kyjov he was well known for his strikingly dishevelled appearance, which meant that few people believed that he actually had film in his camera. Tichý’s work is in clear contrast to the contemporary mainstream trend for “perfectly” sharp, compositionally correct and clearly comprehensible photography. Blurred images, marks made by bad developing or exposure, chemical stains or edges nibbled by mice are all trademarks of Miroslav Tichý.
Tichý recounts his dreams in pictures
The exhibition “That Obscure Object of Desire” focuses on Tichý in the manner of the voyeur, the obsessive hunter of the female leg, bottom or breast. He photographed in his immediate neighbourhood, on the streets of Kyjov, in shops, buffets and especially at the swimming pool. Images with the mesh of the wire fence, through which he photographed, sometimes capture the naked form of girls and women as they sunbathe or get changed. Thanks to Tichý’s “imperfect” style of factual recording, his images are not just the photographs of a voyeur, they are the pictures of an artist who captures the gentle mystery of woman and recounts his dreams of her.
Further information about the exhibition and Miroslav Tichý can be found at www.artkunst.cz
