Josef Koudelka – Industrial Landscapes

Beginning his photographical career with theatre reports besides his engineering studies at the Czech Technical University, Josef Koudelka became known for his photos of the Soviet invasion in Prague in August 1968. Even though these images were published anonymously by Magnum, he decided to immigrate and started to work for the famous agency in 1971. Traveling with his camera throughout Europe, he gained numerous grants and awards. At the same time, he continued to exhibit and realise publications. Gypsies (1975) and Exiles (1988) are famous series. He changed his photographical approach completely, when he focused on landscapes with a panoramic camera in the 1980s.

Guarding his artistic independency, he was invited by official and private organisms to intervene on industrial sites and surface mining, particularly in France, where he finally obtained the citizenship in 1987, after years as stateless applicant for political asylum in Great Britain. Starting with a mission to document the scenic transformations caused by the construction of the Channel Tunnel in 1986, he visited until 2010 as well landscapes outside of France.

After the upheaval in the states of the Warsaw Pact and the Velvet Revolution in the Czechoslovakia, Koudelka travelled in 1990 for the first time into his country of birth. In the following years, he photographed in the Black Triangle – the border region shared by Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic – which was long time famous for its extremely high levels of pollution. Furthermore, there were photos from Slovakia, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Israel, United States and Azerbaijan in the exhibition. It was the first time that 40 large-scale prints (almost three meters width) of this series were together on view.

The images are depicting landscapes similar to the lunar surface, large construction sites or even garbage dumps. Though besides the depressing witness of human exploitation of nature, there are partly astonishing views on new created landscapes. Sometimes the outlooks on machines resemble those of Alexander Rodchenko, others let think of science fiction film stills.