Photographer, theorist and educator Vladimír Birgus on his Prague exhibitions, the secret life of Josef Sudek, and lifelong friendships.

On Sunday, May 5, he celebrated his seventieth birthday. To mark the occasion, two remarkable exhibitions of his work are currently on view in Prague – at the Czech Photo Centre, an exhibition titled Black and White, focused on documentary photography from a world divided by the Iron Curtain, and at Leica Gallery Prague, a showcase of large-format color photographs from recent years titled Red and Blue.

Vladimír Birgus is an active photographer as well as a historian of photography, an educator, head of the Institute of Creative Photography at the Faculty of Philosophy and Science of Silesian University in Opava, a curator, and a tireless promoter of Czech photography abroad.

He has an immense body of work behind him: from publications devoted to major figures of Czech photography to exhibitions that have successfully toured the world – presenting, either independently or in collaboration, the work of Josef Sudek, František Drtikol, Eugen Wiškovský, Jindřich Marco, Jaroslav Rössler, as well as exhibitions such as Czech Photography of the 20th Century.

His professional enthusiasm has never waned, and he maintains very good relationships with fellow photographers as well as former students. What more could one wish for at a milestone birthday!

Lidovky.cz: By what criteria did you curate the two current exhibitions?

They are completely contrasting. The exhibition at the Czech Photo Centre is entirely black and white; these are my oldest photographs from the 1970s to the 1990s. There is also an internal contrast: the photographs capture life in socialist countries on the one hand, and life in the freer West on the other.

More than half of the photographs selected together with curators Veronika Souralová and Dan Materna, and especially with Martin Wágner, who printed them for me, are being exhibited for the very first time. In addition, there are five projections that made it possible to present approximately another 150 photographs.

By contrast, for the exhibition at Leica Gallery Prague we selected only color photographs, further limited with curator Martin Dostál to red and blue tones. These works are mainly from recent years and the present day.

Photo: Jan Zátorský, MAFRA
Author: Marie Bordier

Source: https://www.lidovky.cz/relax/fotografie-birgus-vystava-sudek.A240430_210711_ln_magazin_lpos