I can still surprise myself, says renowned photographer Vladimír Birgus

Photographer, historian of photography and founder of the Institute of Creative Photography—an institution successful across Central Europe—Vladimír Birgus has celebrated his seventieth birthday. It was an opportunity to meet and talk about his life, but since he does not wish to speak about age and instead passionately discusses his work, we focused, among other things, on his two exhibitions that were held simultaneously in Prague and which he gave himself as a birthday present. Of course, we also touched on many other topics—some of which may surprise readers.

Professor, at first glance I envy your apartment in a First Republic building. You have high ceilings, so everything fits in here—I simply don’t have space at home for so many books, paintings, and photographs.

I understand you—I also lived in a panel apartment for a long time. But of course, not everything fits in here either. Just look at how many books are lying on the floor. And you haven’t seen the bedroom yet. But you know what? The photographs on the wall have been hanging there for about fifteen years. Czech curators would go crazy if they saw that, because they claim that a photograph may be exposed to light for only half a year. Those are the strict standards here: the intensity of lighting must be low, and a photograph may be displayed for only six months. This has practical consequences, because a travelling exhibition can be shown in two places, and then, for example, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam might refuse it, because a Czech curator has said that a photograph may only be displayed for half a year. Meanwhile, in American museums, photographs are commonly exhibited for two years under normal lighting. Curators there have found that not much happens to a photograph as long as it is not exposed to direct sunlight or excessively intense artificial light.

You celebrated your seventieth birthday, among other things, with two exhibitions. The exhibition Black and White included both older and newer photographs, but the ones that spoke to me most were those from Czechoslovakia in the 1980s, because I know the context and remember that time.

Most of these photographs could not be exhibited at the time. The vast majority of them were only enlarged in the past seven years; before that, they existed only as negatives. And quite a large portion actually came into being only now, when I was going through negatives that had been lying in folders for thirty years. I admit that some of the things I found surprised me, because I had, of course, forgotten many of them. For example, in 1982 I was drafted into the army from FAMU, and I photographed life in the barracks at the time. There are some quite interesting shots documenting how things worked in the military. Even curiosities: for instance, the later Minister of Defence, Martin Stropnický, is captured there—he served alongside me. It’s rather absurd—back then he was a private like us, and later he became a minister.

Photo: Tomáš Novák
Author: Lukáš Novosad
https://echo24.cz/g/HJzEZ/tydenik-echo-rozhovor-fotograf-vladimir-birgus