Jan Kubíček
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“Lentiny” Decollage, 1963, black and white photograph

Jan Kubíček was born in Kolín in 1927 and is his name is still synonymous with the city. His parents had a grocery shop until the start of the 1950s, when it was nationalised; they were however allowed to stay on as employees. He was friends with Kolín born painter Jiří Balcar, and even after moving to Prague he stayed connected to the Kolín arts scene, which included, among others, Miloš Kim Houdek.

Although Jan Kubíček is most often referred to as a painter, graphic artist and creator of objects, photography appears in his art as often as the other above-mentioned media. The oldest surviving photographs are from the late 1940s, and the most recent photograms are from the mid 1980s, when Kubíček stopped working in the dark room. At that time, during one of his regular visits to Kubíček’s studio, Jiří Valoch “discovered” his files, containing photographs and photograms, and immediately arranged an exhibition, at which they were first presented to the public. It took place in spring 1985 in the Jaromír Funke Photography section in Dům Pánů z Kunštátu in Brno. The text for the catalogue was written by Jiří Valoch himself (and to this day is one of the best pieces of writing about Kubíček’s photography). The exhibition was undoubtedly a success, and thanks to Antonín Dufek some exhibited works very quickly found their into the collection of the Moravian gallery in Brno, and later to the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague.

From that time, Kubíček appeared in most publications that mapped Czech post-war art not only as a painter and graphic artist but also as a photographer (as well as the academic Dějiny českého výtvarného umění [The History of Czech Fine Art] is the revealing publication by Zdeněk Primus, Umění je abstrakce [Art is Abstraction], 2003 should also be mentioned), nevertheless, and this concerns all his art, a thorough monograph that evaluates his work and places it in the context of the Czech and international scene is still lacking. The exhibition in the Kolín Regional museum is more of a small reminder of the scope of Kubíček’s photography, considering the number of works, approaches and themes that appear in his work. It is however important that this exhibition takes place in the framework of the Funke’s Kolín photographic festival, not only because of Kubíček’s Kolín roots, but because in the past his work, particularly his photograms, was seen and appreciated more by painters than photographers.

Kubíček’s work with photosensitive material is relatively extensive. “Where did I find time to do all this,” Jan Kubíček asked several times, with mild astonishment, in summer, when we selected pieces for the exhibition. Even though Kubíček did not exhibit his photography, photographs played an irreplaceable role in his artistic process. Significant, for example, was the long-term Lunaparky (Funfairs) series, which creates a counterpart to his strict geometric work, typical of paintings from the late 1960s: “Funfair itself appears to be something outside of the technique, style and thinking of a contemporary person, something of a beautiful and futile anachronism, yet despite this it entices and attracts…”

For the Kolín exhibition we eventually selected photographs more linked to his other works – from Zdi a stěny (Fences and walls), 1960–1964, Dekoláže z plakátovací plochy (Decollage of billboard), 1960–1965, Dveře – dveře (Doors – doors), 1965–1984, Forma – akce (Form – event) and Dislokace ze čtverce (Dislocation from a square), the latter two both from the mid 1980s. Visually, both collections correspond with the tendency of liking the city environment, this is also given by an admiration of and history with Skupina 42, whose legacy Jan Kubíček then supported. In contrast to the Czech Informel, into which this type of photograph (fragments of walls, found nooks, structures and so on) is commonly classified and which in the Czech environment is mostly lyrical, Kubíček’s main criteria for photography was the “painterliness” or the “creativity” of a particular detail. He was not looking for a surreal fantasy subtext, such as is present, for example, in the visually similar photographs of Emila Medková. It is interesting that he allowed himself this step into the “realm of fantasy” in the titles of several pictures, for example Červený kontinent (Red continent), (1962), even though later it was renamed to the less personal Brown structure. An important element that appears in many of his photographs is text – be it in the form of a sign, notice or engraving in a wall or in a decollage made from the remainder of advertising posters. As Jiří Valoch writes: “From many fragments there originated a confrontation of images and letters – concentrated by a message – from which the actual information has been removed and replaced with more generally applicable information about the nature of communication in cities and the visual and semantic attractiveness of new encounters.” Zdenek Primus adds that “the found textual signs, without a specific audience, perhaps brought Kubíček to his geometric works around 1965.”

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“Black Ilka”, Decollage from billboard, 1963, black and white photograph

In the whole of Kubíček’s work it is apparent how one medium affects others, even though it may involve a completely different type of work. The majority of geometric works are generally characterised by an effort to thoroughly analyse the shape, to compose, decompose and recompose and phase new arrangements... This certainly applies to the Doors – doors series, which we can view as part of the Bechers’ tradition of conceptual photography, since it maintains the same, almost impersonal approach to photographing a chosen theme, and also as a constructivist element, that allows many variations in the resultant arrangement. Even in this series Kubíček was interested predominantly in those photos where several visual elements permeate – text, the structure of the pavement, and the texture of doors and walls.

Another significant group of works is formed by those in which Kubíček abandoned the camera and the capturing of a material reality and embarked on creative work in the dark room. A whole series of photograms thus originated. These relate to his paintings and objects and allow the introduction of another element into his work – chance. Again in the words of Jiří Valoch: “It is a relationship between order and its violation, between the fixed, defined structure or structure and its decomposition, between systematic arrangements of elements and their dislocation.” Perhaps the greatest role here is played by the gesture of free will and the almost playful space for exhausting many possible variations of the shape and movement of an object – rotation, covering and fall. Kubíček’s creative process, particularly in the Forma – akce (Form – action) and Forma – akce (Průsvit) (Form – action Translucence) series, examines the qualities of new groupings, arising from the deconstruction of original forms. Also important is the possibility of “summing” individual layers created by covering translucent paper. It is something of an opposite to decollage from the 1960s. In the Geometrie – příroda (Geometry – nature), 1985, series the photogram combines certain products of nature and its conversion to a geometric structure; in this we can see a definite counterpart to Wojnar’s Mřížkové básně (Grid Poems). Both artists, Jan Wojnar and Jan Kubíček, independently and at the same time applied themselves to the exploration of this media, and achieved similar results, though of course in a formally distinct way.

Somewhere at the beginning of preparations for this year’s Funke’s Kolín photographic festival there was an endeavour to return to the analysis of the medium of photography – to remind that photography is not a single stream but encompasses a whole gamut of approaches, possibilities and interpretations. In the work of Jan Kubíček, unmanipulated photography and a record of a certain process clash; forthright photographs exist alongside the conceptual. Jan Kubíček is thus not only a “figure whose work is closely linked with Kolín” but also someone who embodies the thematic definition of the entire festival. There is perhaps no better way to express Stopy a záznamy (Traces and records).

– Helena Musilová

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from the Form – action (Translucence) series, 1984, photogram

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