No title, 1970-tallet

Jiří Poláček was born in Prague in 1946. He emigrate from Czechoslovakia to the United States in 1966 where he concluded a course of photojournalism at UCLA in Los Angeles. In 1972, he unexpectedly returned to socialist Czechoslovakia partly because of the threat of being drafted into Vietnam. Soon he found employment with the Czech Press Agency photographic laboratories, and worked there for eight years in the department of large prints. In addition, he studied photography externally at FAMU, 1974–78, concluding with his diploma project consisting of panoramic photographs depicting Prague’s Smíchov neighbourhood. For this, one must look back a few years to the end of 1974, when Poláček meets photographer Jan Svoboda and was enchanted by his work. The appreciation soon became mutual and, Svoboda entrusted Poláček with the enlargement of his prints. Although Poláček approached closest to Svoboda’s already mythical personality, his images are heading into different realms. Poláček’s pictures are cleared of any superfluous pathos. They are defined by their conciseness that mercilessly seeks out the actual shape of the city. Not a minor role in Poláček’s unaffected attitude is the thorough knowledge of modern American photography, whose influence (both technical and programmatic) is clearly evident in the laconic stridency of Poláček’s photographs. As if Josef Sudek’s Prague was suddenly invaded by Weegee and a bunch of lost gangsters.