Schwarze Jahre
EMOP Berlin 2018
Curated by Lucie Černá
The oppressive atmosphere of communist Czechoslovakia forced the photographer Libuše Jarcovjáková to flee in 1985 to West Berlin. However, life was not exactly easy even here. She knew no German and had no friends or popular places to hang out. She lacked the warmth of the human body, proximity and understanding. Against the background of a divided city, she set out to search for herself to discover whether her emigration had really led to internal and external freedom. She looked for faces and places that might help her understand her new reality and embrace her. At night she walked through the dark city and frequented bars and pubs, and during the day she undertook arduous work for little money. She battled with loneliness, but all this time she recorded everything in photographs and words.
Jarcovjáková’s the first solo show in Berlin Schwarze Jahre: Berliner Tagebücher 1985–1990 consisted of photographs from the years in West Berlin just preceding the fall of the Wall.
She constantly battled loneliness, yet throughout this time, she recorded everything in photographs and words. The images came about as though thoughtlessly on impulse, but they nonetheless had a sense of order and harmony.
The title of the exhibition Schwarze Jahre (The Black Years) is intended to evoke a feeling of sadness and hopelessness. But what effect do Jarcovjáková’s photographs have today? Do they continue to tell the same story? Thirty years on we do not see the desperation and pain. In her intuitive snapshots there is the strength, the confidence, and the dazzling photographic concept. The aesthetic and dynamic of the images that appear as though inadvertently and impulsively contain an order and harmony within them. They speak to the viewer and force to question what might be concealed behind the image. Jarcovjáková has a clear idea of what to shoot and how. She invites the viewer into the world of her inner being, the very core of her selfhood, by turning her gaze back upon herself and shedding her soul in front of the viewer.
What’s On
The Black Years at EMOP Berlin 2018.