Bearing witness

JOSEF KOUDELKA and Beyond
Control: Critical Transition in
the Baltic Republics at Pres-
entation House, 333 Chester-
field Ave. Jan. 4-26, 1992.
Wed - Sun 12-5, Thurs. 12-9.

| t was an astonishing year

Gintankas Trimakas’ work, more
subtle though less dramatic than
that of his tellow exhibitors, con-
sists of photo-tragments of objects
like a map of Vilnéus, a piano, a
stove, and a radio, all of which in
some insidious way, are deprived
on the international of the essential functions they

were designed to perform.

scene.

To The photos of Koudelka and the
Baltic four happily work together,
each complementing the others by
suggesting inter-related readings of
the history of the death of human-
ity. As we enter 1992, this is a re-
ality much of the world still en-
dures.

Joset Koudelka

THE CZECH photographer Josef Koudetka gives us some superbly poetic images in his work now
on display at Presentation House (Above: Portugal, 1976).

Archie Graham
ART REVIEW

Among a host of other dramatic
events, we witnessed the gradual,
though not always certain,
dissolution and eventua! demise of
the Soviet Union, and held cur
breath as Eastern European and
Baltic countries shakily began the
long ascent to independent na-
tionhood.

As the current shows at Pres-
entation House demonstrate, the
human cost of these events has
been, and will continue to be,
staggering.

The works here consist of
nothing less than the most effec-
tive kind of historical documents
that testify to this fact: eye-witness
teports of artists.

Josef Koudelka is a Czech
photographer who escaped from
his homeland a couple of years
after the Soviet invasion of 1968.

His evocative black and white
photos of the tanks rolling into
Prague are vivid demonstrations of
the remarkable heroism of the
observer.

The simple yet defiant act of

7 1992 HOLLYBURN

1991 HOLLYBURN HYUNDAI SCOUPE L

bearing witness to the ultimate
transgression of human rights is in
itself a Courageous act. Koudelka
was there when it counted.

He daringly rode the barrel of a
Soviet tank gun to capture the
reaction of his countrymen as they
helplessly faced the invaders.

He openly stood behind an
unarmed protester facing-down a
soldier pointing the nozzle of an
automatic weapon in his face.

He gives us some superbly poet-
ic images of gypsies, homeless
people, apparently retarded per-
sons, and elderly individuals
caught spontaneously in a mo-
ment of the most haunting despair

These memorable pictures of
humanity victimized by the rude
and often cruel circumstances of
living may not cheer us up, but
their profound compassion is
nevertheless deeply consoling.

There is nothing consoling,
however, about the work of the
four Baltic artists exhibiting in
Beyond Contrel.

tn fact, Latvian artist Andris
Brez’s large serigraphs, superim-
posing photo images of faces and
parts of bodies onto monolithic,
sketched figures, threateningly
wielding axes, hay-forks, and
rakes, are thoroughly alarming
because they link brutal violence
with raw, inhuman power.

Alfonsis Budvytis’ Ward Seven
for Men is a group of acutely pain-
ful pictures of individuals reduced
by impersonal institutions to the
most appalling state of desolation.

Juri Okas’ fragmented images of
wastelands, abandoned roads,
rubble-covered landscapes, and
quarries, are pieced together in a
mathematical, neo-constructivist
style to look like strangely botched
plans of some alien bureaucratic
surveyor.

Photos for illustration only.
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