FATESCAPES Pavel Maria Smejkal
Fatescapes, 2009-2012 Special edition, 50 images/edition 3 Archival pigment prints on Hahnemuehle papier 45 cm paper size
Pavel Maria Smejkal FATESCAPES This work, a series of images that are completely familiar yet strikingly alien, seems at first to address primarily historical themes, including the history of human events as well as the history of the photographic medium itself. But more fundamentally it stems from current perspectives, reflections, and technical possibilities. Thanks to the rise of digitalization, the widespread sharing of information on the Internet, and the postmodern approach to themes of originality, reality, and truth, photography has become something very different from what it was when it first came into being. Fatescapes is, among other things, a commentary on these current trends, situations, and changing reality. This work also addresses questions of artistic re-appropriation. Even though in Fatescapes the author uses large parts of the original images, the result is a certain negation of the original meaning or function of the piece. Fatescapes, under the title evoking the content of the original photographs reflecting fateful events of global importance, and evoking landscape as an anchor of our earthly existence, represents a work focusing on tough turning points of humanity in the past and at the same moment raising questions about the present and the future.
1855, Crimea
1863, Gettysburg
1863, Gettysburg
1869, Utah
1903, North Carolina
1912, Antarctica
1917, Passendale
1930, Marion
1934, Nurenberg
1936, Spain
1937, New Jersey
1941, Hawaii
1942, Kerch
1942, Latvia
1943, New Guinea
1944, New Guinea
1944, Normandy
1944, Omaha beach
1945, Germany
1945, Iwo Jima
1945, Berlin
1945, Buchenwald
1950, Korea
1951, Nevada
1960, Tokyo
1962, Venezuela
1963, Texas
1965, Vietnam
1966, Mississippi
1967, Bolivia
1968, Memphis
1968, Saigon
1970, Kent
1972, Vietnam
1972, Munich
1973, Chile
1974, San Francisco
1975, Boston
1979, Iran
1981, Washington
1985, Colombia
1989, Beijing
1992, Somalia
1994, Sudan
1995, Rwanda
2001, New York
2004, Abu Ghraib
2008, Kenya
Fatescapes, 2009-2012 Over the course of my photographic work, I have become intrigued by famous photographs, by instantly recognizable icons with content linked to fatal life situations. These images have powerfully influenced generations of artists, who have repeatedly referred to and commented on them through appropriation, citation, and other methods, and many of them provoke a discussion about the truth and reality. In Fatescapes I combine the following approaches: I ask about the entity and essence of our bodies; I examine historical themes using the existing photographic record; I explore photography as a medium, interrogating its function of representation and the limits thereof; and I consider the aesthetics of the image itself. In Fatescapes, I remove the central motifs from historical documentary photographs - and the main subject of these motifs, human bodies. I use images that have become our cultural heritage, constitute the memory of nations, serve as symbols or tools of propaganda, and exemplify a specific approach to photography as a document of the historical moment. I explore their purpose and function, and I ask about the future of this magic medium, and about human existence. Aware that their authenticity is not unquestionable, I return to these key images after they have been reinterpreted numerous times from various perspectives, and by manipulating their content I explore their purpose, function, and future. I am interested in the answer to the question: What would happen, if the given event never took place? Further, I investigate the relationship between documentary photography and archetypal landscape; the search for solid ground in the turbulent world of human existence; the search for the eternal beyond the ephemerality of our bodies and the fleetingness of our events. I ask what it is that we are really doing when we take pictures, when the very next moment our record becomes untrue, and there exists only the present. The work’s goal is to ask many other questions about the photography, our live and history, and provoke to look for the answers... Pavel Maria Smejkal