The Langhans Gallery Prague

A selection of works from last year`s Noorderlicht Photofestival in the Netherlands, this exhibition is a flight over Southeast Asia in the company of sixteen photographers.

It provides a look at the history of portrait and documentary photography as well as reflecting contemporary life in genres from Minimalist Art to ironic portrayals of Bollywood Pop culture.

For the third time now, Langhans Gallery Prague has organized a smaller-scale version of an exhibition from the Noorderlicht Photofestival in the Netherlands. Now Langhans is presenting historical and contemporary photography from a region geographically delimited by China to the south, India to the east, Japan to the west, and Australia to the north. In the Netherlands the exhibition was called “Another Asia.” The adjective “Another” was used because in our Western world Asian visual culture tends to be presented mostly with Japanese photography and Chinese photography, which is gradually freeing itself from the prescribed language of propaganda.

Culturally, South Asia and Southeast Asia are highly diverse regions. They have, to be sure, adopted and reshaped many elements from neighbouring countries, yet local myths, histories, and traditions, often confronted with rapid economic development and its consequent radical social change, remain the basic topic of contemporary photographers from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Indonesia, Cambodia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam. What is the photographic tradition that photographers in South and South East Asia come out of?

Photography was imported to these regions in the late nineteenth century by colonial institutions with the aim of documenting the character of settlement here, the population, the landscape, the flora and fauna, and so forth. The employees of the colonial studios were usually photographers from the West. The locals at first looked up to the camera as a magical object. With time, however, they too could afford to take photographs. Initially they used photographs for religious purposes (as something to be put on an altar), but by the 1920s they were having wedding photographs and portraits made. Another example is illustrations for annual reports of industrial companies or school annuals.

Annu Palakunnathu Matthew: Dowry Violence, Bollywood Satirized, 1999-2000 © Annu Palakunnathu Matthew, courtesy Sepia International, USA

Circumstances did not permit photography to be elevated from applied art to fine art till only about the last decade of the twentieth century. The political situation in many countries of Southeast Asia was tense, and in most countries of the region the State expected photography to bolster national self-confidence or serve as propaganda for State ideology. Illustrated periodicals began to develop in the 1970s, but the photos were only a faithful documentation of reality. It is reasonable to consider 1992 as the milestone in the move away from photography as a record of reality. That was when the Art Institute of Jakarta opened a photography department and Antara, Indonesia’s national news agency, opened one of the first photography galleries in the region. In most of the countries of these regions today there are several dozen contemporary-art institutions, museums, and hundreds of private galleries.

The selection for the Air Asia exhibition at Langhans Gallery Prague presents 17 historical and contemporary sets of photographs. A large catalogue was published to accompany the Dutch version of the exhibition. Apart from the introduction by the chief curator, Wim Melis, it includes essays by Alex Supartono, Sue Hajdu, and Raghu Rai. They help to reveal how artists coming from different milieus depict changes in society, how they address the question of national history, and what kinds of art their environments have inspired them to.

Films by Lester Peries, Wednesday, 6 Junde, and Wednesday, 20 June, and some shhort documentary films, on Wednesday, 13 June at Ponrepo, the screening room of the Czech national film archive. All begin at 8 pm.

Accompanying events:

Thurs,   3 May, 5 pm,
Woman in Indian Society. A talk by Dagmar Marková

Thurs, 10 May, 5 pm,
Zen Buddhism. A talk by Jiří Holba

Thurs, 17 May, 5 pm,
Indonesia. A talk by Zdeněk Zbořil

Thurs, 24 May, 5 pm,
The Religions of South-East Asia: Piety, Politics, and Commerce. A talk by Zdeněk Nešpor

Thurs, 31 May, 5 pm,
A slide-show of photographs of Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam, with commentary, by Aleš Bílý

Thurs, 7 June,  5 pm, 
The War between America and Vietnam, 1964–72. A public discussion led by Ivo Vasiljev and Zdeněk Zbořil

Thurs 14 June, 5 pm, 
A concert of Indian music. Organized by the Indian Embassy as part of celebrations marking the 60th anniversary of Indian independence

Thurs, 21 June, 5 pm,
Magic Rituals of Bengal Women. A talk by Hana Preinhaelterová

Thurs, 28 June, 5 pm,
Bollywood, Yesterday and Today. A talk by Sangita Shresthová and Radim Špaček

Films by Lester James Peries, Wednesday, 6 June, and Wednesday, 20 June, and some short documentary films, on Wednesday, 13 June. At Ponrepo, the screening room of the Czech National Film Archive. All begin at 8 pm.

We thank the Ministry of Culture and Prague City Hall for their generous support.
Media partners: Art & Antiques, Respekt, Rádio 1, PragueOut, Foto Video.

http://www.pragueout.cz/muzeum/