Photographs like from another World
Abstract
The portfolio presents the life of a photographer, and notable member of a group known as the Slovak new wave, Pavel Pecha in two worlds, while the first one is real and the second one is an alternative created from the negative of bad qualities of the real world. By the author’s words, the second one is of higher value for him, since it became his mirror or picture, and also because this world is more perfect and pragmatic than the real one. His existency becomes a motion between these two worlds, and the same could be said of motion between sky and earth. His portfolio, which here consists of two cycles of photographs titled Painting with Camera and My Intuitive Theater, is accompanied by professional texts by various important art theorists and art critics. In his works, as well as in texts about them, we learn about many possible contexts and narratives, such as similarities to the works of Peter Greenway, or Italian realistic cinematography, or Fellini’s film “La Strada”, also they refer to the tradition of wandering circuses and Gypsy life under the open sky with the strong blast of freedom, and on the other hand to surrealism and expressionism. The photographs of Pavel Pecha are filled by fantasy, absurd situations and play, but on other hand they are determined by the real world, where also violence and evil can appear. Thanks to his photographs, viewers can experience an exciting adventure, which could be also a metaphor for transcendence through images, which are more like from another world. Like all great artists, Pecha intuitively feels, that he does not belong in the real world anymore, and that is the essence of art. The main cycle My Intuitive Theater is his most important cycle, which is full of incredible, surreal and absurd imagination. Scenes from his imagination becomes mystical in the autumn and empty field, where the author becomes part of the universe. Pecha creates an illusion of the infinite, rituals and the mythical period of mankind into the world of collective memory. So, come on a journey with us to enter the mind of this famous photographer, who lives somewhere between heaven and earth.
Key words
Abstract Photography. Analog Photography. Black and White Photography. Digital colour Photography. Existency. Fantasy. Intuitive Theater. Minimalism. Pataphysical Field. Real and Unreal word. Relationship. Sacrificial table. Slavic soul. Somebody alone. Staged photography. Surreal matrix.
PECHA, P.: Photographs like from another World. In European Journal of Media, Art and Photography, 2021, Vol. 9, No. 1, pp. 38-71, ISSN 1339-4940.