Jan Saudek

David Guiraud gallery is pleased to present a photography exhibition by Jan SAUDEK, a famous Czech artist born in 1935. The 37 original prints selected, most of which are period prints, were made in the 1970s and 1980s, the most creative in the Praguois.

This is the second time the gallery has had the chance to organize an exhibition of Saudek's works from an important French private collection. The singular colors of the photographs are due to inks applied by hand by the artist, making each print unique. These painted colorations accentuate the pictorial specificity of skillfully elaborated prints.

The richness of this collection makes it possible to propose an emblematic set of the artist's obsessions. We find photographs taken in his cellar and then in his studio-studio, of women of all ages, often overgrown, erotic accomplices; narrative scenes made up of several images, sometimes combined on the same print; astonishing playing cards fashioned with one or two models; as well as evocations of the passing of time made possible by the continuity of the relationship between Saudek and some of his models over ten or twenty years.

Certainly, the closed-door existence of the closely watched marginal "pornocrat" has exacerbated his vocation. Strong of his convictions, he never ceased to make expressive his most intimate inspirations.

Entering photography following his discovery of Edward Steichen's The Family of Man (1955), Saudek joined the circles developed by Alfons Mucha, Lewis Carroll, Hans Bellmer, Duane Michals, Robert Mapplethorpe?

Saudek's photographs of living fire celebrate life, freedom, sexuality, sensual emotions and family ties, without ignoring the malevolence and violence that people deliberately inflict on themselves.

The woman is the center of gravity of the universe of the alchemist who takes off her clothes to better put her in grace. The body fascinates him. It is the first truth of any being. It is in it that the proliferation of the senses takes place. It is he who most deliberately resists ideologies. Yet, as Saudek knows, no one can escape the supreme law of finitude: aging, death. Every body bears witness to human nature. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

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