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House of Art
TUES–SUN 10:00–18:00

Untitled

2004

from the series I Don’t Paint, fomaspeed variant photographic enlargement, 650 × 1025 mm

purchased 2018 with the support of the Czech Ministry of Culture

This photograph represents one of the typical facets of Michal Kalhous’s work. The composition is an everyday still life which immediately captures the state of things which speak for themselves, without the need for any additional stylization. Again humans are present here a priori, in the background of the rational still life. Alongside its calm quietness, this still life can also be read as signifying a certain tension, reflecting a degree of inconclusiveness; the bread roll has been left partly uneaten, the lid has not been replaced. A process has been halted, suspended, disrupted, and we can only speculate why. This conceptualized openness, tension, dialogicity, and depiction of everyday reality again offers a clear illustration of how Czech artistic photography shifted its focus at the turn of the 21th century – and it is right that this shift should be illustrated in institutional collections.

KALHOUS MICHAL

(*1967, Valašské Meziříčí) Photographer. After studying mathematics and physics at the Science Faculty of Palacký University in Olomouc (1985─1990), he then studied for an art degree (also in Olomouc) from 1990 to 1995, but did not complete his studies. In 2001─2006 he worked as a curator for the Šternberk Gallery. Since 2006 he has been an assistant professor and studio head at the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, University of Ostrava (Department of Intermedia Studies). He has exhibited (both individually and as part of group exhibitions) since 1995. Kalhous is a member of a highly talented generation of Czech photographers who experiment with the medium and probe its boundaries. His genre pieces and landscapes are particularly remarkable, capturing imprints of everyday reality which is either recorded authentically, as it occurs, or in a decontextualized form. In his early work he focused on highly intense themes of death and other extreme situations, and in his later career he became fascinated with the power of the everyday, which eventually morphed into his current interest in his own family environment.
fomaspeed variant photographic enlargement; 1080 × 788 mm; purchased 2018 with the support of the Czech Ministry of Culture
2002

Untitled

fomaspeed variant photographic enlargement, 1080 × 782 mm; purchased 2018 with the support of the Czech Ministry of Culture
1998

Untitled

Untitled / fomaspeed variant photographic enlargement; 1080 × 1520 mm; purchased 2018 with the support of the Czech Ministry of Culture
2006

Untitled

Girl in a fur

Girl in a fur

undated
Old Eroticism

Old Eroticism

1996
Concrete (Below a Slag-Heap)

Concrete (Below a Slag-Heap)

1983
Wallachian Madonna

Wallachian Madonna

1921
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