VLADIMÍR BIRGUS

Photographs by Vladimír Birgus are not so much characterised by brilliant technique or consistent application of visual relationships; most emphasis is put on pronounced originality. Birgus's view, or system governing such view, contains many aspects we have not seen in Czech photographs in the past, or saw only sparsely.

Many photographs have been created in the world photography that tend to display similar views; however, most of them have always shown certain signs of "stage-management." Such an attitude may have good reasons, but the resulting work is more an expression of allegory or actors' performance than experiences of abstract or generally human qualities. If such artificiality is not present, the unarranged, raw reality – such as shown by Birgus – proves unrepeatable and is, in its own right, able to imprint originality into the result.

The most characteristic feature of Birgus's photographs is confrontation between realistic main characters of the scenes and the environment in which the story is taking place. This confrontation is usually based on a contrast. (...) The author is not interested in tragedy, devastating facts or hopelessness. People in his photos simply walk in the streets, push trolleys, women carry bread and men gloomily walk with cigarettes in their mouths. Children are playing, aiming a toy pistol or doing a headstand in front of a distant, ordinary-looking building; an elderly lady, leaning on a walking stick, is walking along a street on which "NO" is written. These everyday, ordinary and apparently boring things take on remarkableness when seen through Birgus's camera, remarkableness which is – among other things – characterised by exact observation of physiognomy, suggestively expressing the characters' attitude to life and the actual situation. Sometimes it is tiredness, sometimes apathy or joy, stubbornness, lethargy, sadness or passion. This is the dominant feature of Birgus's photographs. This method of expression, as a sort of by-product, also brings forth certain visual elements (especially a good composition), but this plays a secondary role, even though the photographs' expression is governed by the meaning, and at the same time it is a platform on which the meaning is based.

Václav Zykmund

Václav Zykmund (signed by Alena Nápravníková since he was not allowed to publish at that time): Vladimír Birgus. Revue Fotografie, 1980, No. 2, p. 36.

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