JINDŘICH ŠTREIT BEFORE THE LENS

THE EXHIBITION IS HELD UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE CZECH CENTRE BRATISLAVA

Among living photographers, Jindřich Štreit probably holds the record with 1,680 solo exhibitions. Some of them have been presented by the Month of Photography in Bratislava. Alongside Josef Sudek, Jan Saudek and Josef Koudelka, he is one of the most frequently photographed Czech photographers. Yet he has never before had an exhibition presenting the ways in which he has been portrayed by his fellow photographers – from renowned figures such as Karel Cudlín, Ľubo Stacho, Robo Kočan, Dana Kyndrová, Pavel Mára, Václav Podestát, Milena Valušková, Jiří Stivín, Daniel Šperl, Richard Horák, Jindřich Buxbaum, Blanka Chocholová, Ivan Fíla, Roman Vondrouš, Dan Materna, Marek Malůšek, Eduard Palíšek, Arkadiusz Gola, Michał Szalast, Ondřej Durczak, or David Macháč, to his students from FAMU and the Institute of Creative Photography of the Silesian University in Opava, participants in his workshops, friends and members of his own family. We are pleased to have been able to prepare the first exhibition of its kind, accompanied by a catalogue, on the occasion of his significant anniversary, as a small tribute to everything he has done – and continues to do – for the Institute of Creative Photography, the Faculty of Philosophy and Science and the Silesian University in Opava, as well as for Czech photography and Czech culture as a whole. And he was equally important to Slovak photography and Slovak culture. After all, he taught at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, led creative workshops in Slovakia, held numerous exhibitions and lectures, and inspired many Slovak photographers to take an interest in documentary photography.

We are pleased to have been able to present Jindřich Štreit through such a broad range of photographs – from a portrait taken for his school-leaving yearbook, in which one cannot help but recall the face of Jean-Paul Belmondo, to a dignified, formal portrait taken at the ceremony awarding him an honorary doctorate at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, which inevitably evokes the works of the Old Masters. From a photograph of the young teacher at a rural primary school to an image of the newly appointed university professor at Prague’s Karolinum. From a photograph taken at his wedding to his beloved Agnes to a snapshot of a walk along a Portuguese beach with his grandson Daniel. From photographs of Štreit together with Henri Cartier-Bresson, William Klein, Josef Koudelka, Václav Havel, Věra Chytilová and Marek Eben to a spontaneous snapshot with his colleagues from the Institute of Creative Photography, taken after a whipped-cream fight on the occasion of Štreit’s fiftieth birthday. The exhibition and catalogue show Jindřich Štreit not only at work behind the camera, but also recall that, at a time when so much was dictated and so little was permitted, he organised exhibitions, concerts, and lectures at Sovinec featuring people who were not always free to appear publicly in Prague or Bratislava. They also present Jindřich Štreit as a dignified artist and teacher, rarely seen without his long red scarf, but also as an exceptionally kind and empathetic person, as well as a lover of dance and hot raspberries. Through the work of numerous photographers, the exhibition thus convincingly demonstrates that Jindřich Štreit is not only an outstanding photographer, but also an exceptional human being. Vladimír Birgus