Vladimír Birgus

Birgus occupies an important position in Czech and international photography and has made a name for himself in several different roles. He works as curator, writer, historian and lecturer. In addition to his theoretical work he is an active photographer.

The beginning of his curatorial activities is associated with the Podloubí Gallery in Olomouc, whose programme during what is known as the period of normalisation in Czechoslovakia diverged from official galleries. During the 1970s and early 80s Birgus participated in shows that exhibited the work of the young generation of Czech and Slovak photographers. He also exhibited himself. In the second half of the seventies he began writing for Czechoslovak Photography and the Photographic Review, and he was published in many other domestic and international periodicals. He wrote exhibition reviews, profiles of young artists and photographers from around the world, as well as studies of avant-garde theatre and its use of film and photographic projection, based on research he had conducted when writing his dissertation and thesis. An opportunity to travel around Europe gave him the opportunity to inform the Czech scene of events taking place in the world of photography. He published reviews of exhibitions abroad, festivals and galleries. He created an extensive network of international contacts and collaborated on curatorial projects at home and abroad. He worked closely with representatives of Polish and Lithuanian photography.

He wrote books on many different artists (e.g. Miroslav Bílek, Milan Borovička, Tibor Honty and Jindřich Marco), contributed significantly to promoting the work of František Drtikol and discovered the until then unknown Krnov-based photographer Gustav Aulehla. Birgus is most at home with large anthologising exhibitions and publications published in different languages introducing Czech photography to the outside world and helping to establish its place within a European context.

During the 1980s and 90s, when interest in the West was increasing in the art of countries of the former Soviet bloc, along with Miroslav Vojtěchovský he prepared several exhibitions of Czechoslovak and then Czech photography for foreign festivals and galleries: Contemporary Czechoslovakian Photography (1989, Amsterdam), Tschechoslowakische Fotografie der Gegenwart (1990, Cologne), Certainty and Searching in Czech Photography of the 1990s (1993), and Czech Photography of the 1990s (1996). Later he turned his attention to more detailed work. With Václav Podestát he organised the exhibition Contemporary Czech Documentary Photography (2001, Herten), while gender played a pivotal role in the exhibition of Czech and Slovak female photographers Glocal Girls as part of Prague Biennale 3 (2007). His most recent exhibition The Intimate Circle in Contemporary Czech Photography (2013) attempted to examine “the themes and motifs of artistic self-reflection, introspection, intimacy, family, close people and things” (Birgus).

Of avant-garde personalities Birgus paid close attention to the work of Eugen Wiškovský and Jaroslav Rössler. His exhibition Modern Beauty: The Czech Photographic Avant-garde1918-1948 (1998) won international acclaim. It was premiered in Barcelona and reprised in Paris, Lausanne, Prague, Munich, and in a pared down form in Berlin and Budapest. With Jan Mlčoch he organised the exhibition The Nude in Czech Photography (2000) and the large exhibition Czech Photography of the 20th Century (2005), which did not restrict itself to established figures but attempted a chronological organisation of the main developmental tendencies of Czech photography, including those that had previously been sidelined, be this genre-based amateur photography of the interwar period or work in the spirit of socialist realism.

Birgus’s curatorial projects are often linked with his teaching activities. After graduating from the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, in 1978 he became a lecturer at the photography department, and from 1998 to 2002 led the Department of the History and Theory of Photography. In 1982 he became director of the Institute of Creative Photography of the Czech Union of Photographers, first offering correspondence courses and later combined training for amateurs. In 1990 the institute received accreditation as a university and became part of the Silesian University in Opava. Birgus organised many exhibitions of student works at home and abroad and established a reputation for both universities on the international stage.

At the start of his own career as photographer in the late 1960s, Birgus was most interested in staged photography. In Sequence (1969–73) he manipulated the negative in order to capture the gradual disappearance of the figure in sequentially arranged shots, while the cycle of nudes Contrapunct (1972–74) is based on the creative contrast of black-and-white. Documentary photography gradually predominated in his work. He recorded scenes from public life, including a critical view of communist celebrations and demonstrations, or random yet expressive situations from the streets of Western European cities he was permitted to visit during the seventies on work trips (the cycles Bradford, East End, 1975). His lifelong project is the huge, as yet unfinished cycle Cosi nevyslovitelného / Something Unspeakable. His pictures often deal with parallel events and unconventional compositions capturing a subjective mood and creative character. During the 1980s colour enters his work and becomes a predominant feature of the image, lending a hint of the phantasmagorical. During the nineties both the colour scheme and composition of his work becomes calmer and crowded scenes alternative with starker atmospheres. An almost existential element arrives that lends his work a symbolic level. His photography acquires the emotive eloquence of something ineffable.

Literature:
Štěpánka Bieleszová, Vladimír Birgus. Photography 1972-2014, KANT, Prague 2014.

1999 
FAMU Praha, jmenován profesorem 1994 
FAMU Praha, habilitován docentem 1980 
Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Palackého v Olomouci, PhDr. 1974-1978 
FAMU Praha, mimořádné studium fotografie 1973-1978 
Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Palackého v Olomouci, literatura-divadlo-film

1990
dosud Vedoucí Institutu tvůrčí fotografie FPF SU Opava 1999-2005
(externě) Profesor FAMU
1994-99 
Docent FAMU Praha a FPF SU Opava 1990-1994 
Odborný asistent, Filozoficko-přírodovědecká fakulta Slezské univerzity v Opavě 1978-1994 
Odborný asistent, FAMU Praha

Výstavy (kurátor): 2015
Drtikol, Funke, Rössler, Wiškovský: Mistři české avantgardní fotografie, Dům umění, Opava. 2013
Vnitřní okruh v současné české fotografii, GHMP, Praha (Dom umenia, Bratislava). 2012
Institut tvůrčí fotografie FPF SU Opava, Prague Photo, DOX, Praha. 2010
Darkness for Light. Czech Photography Today, Shiseido Gallery, Tokyo (s Yu Isekim).
Institute of Creative Photography, Silesian University in Opava, Linacre College, University of Oxford, Oxford. 2009
Tenkrát na Východě – Češi očima fotografů 1948–1989, Galerie hlavního města Prahy, Dům U Kamenného zvonu, Praha (s Tomášem Pospěchem). 2008
Česká avantgardní fotografie / Czech Avant-Garde Photography: Jaromír Funke, Eugen Wiškovský, Czech Center, New York.
Tereza Vlčková, Transphotographiques, TriPostal, Lille.
Institut tvůrčí fotografie FPF SU v Opavě, Prague Foto, Výstavní síň Mánes, Praha (s Alešem Kunešem, Pavlem Márou a Tomášem Pospěchem). 2007
František Drtikol & Jaroslav Rössler, Master & Student, Czech Center, New York.
Glocal Girls. Mladé české a slovenské fotografky, Prague Biennale 3, Praha. 2006
Gustav Aulehla: Takoví jsme byli, Dům umění, Opava.
Miloslav Stibor. Fotografie 1960-1970, Dům umění, Opava.
Institut tvůrčí fotografie FPF SU v Opavě, v rámci výstavního cyklu Šestka / Šest českých fotografických škol. Pražský dům fotografie, Praha. 2005
Česká fotografie 20. století, UMP a GHMP, Praha (s Janem Mlčochem). 2004
Václav Podestát: Lidé, Dům umění, Opava (Poznań, Ostrava).
Město v současné české dokumentární fotografii, Muzej sovremennoj historii Rossii, Moskva – v rámci Fotobienále 2004. 2002
Česká dokumentární fotografie, Leica Gallery, New York. 2001
Jaroslav Rössler – fotografie, koláže, kresby, Uměleckoprůmyslové museum, Praha (s Janem Mlčochem).
Současná česká dokumentární fotografie, Internationale Fototage, Herten. 2000
Akt v české fotografii, Císařská konírna Pražského hradu, Praha (s Janem Mlčochem). 1998
Moderní krása – Česká fotografická avantgarda 1918-1948, GHMP Praha (s Pierrem Bonhommem). 1997
Tibor Honty, Pražský dům fotografie, Praha. 1996
Jistoty a hledání v české fotografii 90. let, Nejvyšší purkrabství Pražského hradu, Praha (s Miroslavem Vojtěchovským). 1995
Hořká léta – Evropa 1939-1947 očima českých fotografů, Nejvyšší purkrabství Pražského hradu, Praha (s Blankou Chocholovou).
Jindřich Marco – Evropa 1945-47, Pražský dům fotografie, Praha. 1994
František Drtikol, Pražský dům fotografie, Praha.
William Klein, Nejvyšší purkrabství Pražského hradu, Praha. 1993
Česká fotografie 90. let / Czech Photography of the 1990s, Fotofeis, Maclaurin Art Gallery, Ayr (London, s Miroslavem Vojtěchovským). 1992
Eugen Wiškovský, Pražský dům fotografie, Praha. 1991
20 let Institutu výtvarné fotografie, Slezské zemské muzeum, Opava 1991. 1990
Československá fotografie současnosti, Museum Ludwig, Köln (s Miroslavem Vojtěchovským). 1989'
Současná československá fotografie, Holland Foto 89, Nieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam (s Miroslavem Vojtěchovským).
Jiří Lehovec, FAMU, Praha.
Československý listopad 1989, galerie Foma, Praha (s Radovanem Bočkem). 1986
Mladí českoslovenští fotografové, Galerie Aréne, Arles (s Miroslavem Vojtěchovským). 1985
Eugen Wiškovský, Torino Fotografia 1985, Galleria d’Arte Narciso, Torino.
Ze současné litevské fotografie, Dům umění města Brna, Brno. 1984
Fotografie z FAMU, Fotografijos galerija, Kaunas (Fotografijos salon, Vilnius). 1981
Fotografie z pražské FAMU, Stadthalle, Oberhausen. 1980
Dokumentární fotografie na FAMU, Konfrontacje Fotograficzne, BWA, Gorzów. 1977
Deset mladých fotografů. Galerie v podloubí, Olomouc.

Výběrová bibliografie: Vladimír Birgus, Vnitřní okruh v současné české fotografii / The Intimate Circle in Contemporary Czech Photography, KANT, Praha 2013. Vladimír Birgus, Dita Pepe. Autoportréty / Self-portraits, KANT, Praha 2012. Vladimír Birgus (ed.), Opavská škola fotografie. Dvacet let Institutu tvůrčí fotografie FPF Slezské univerzity v Opavě / Opava School of Photography. Twenty Years of the Institute of Creative Photography, Silesian University in Opava, Slezská univerzita, Opava 2011. Vladimír Birgus - Jan Mlčoch, Tschechische Fotografie des 20. Jahrhunderts, Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn 2009. Vladimír Birgus, Gustav Aulehla. Fotografie / Photographs 1957-1990, KANT, Praha 2009. Vladimír Birgus - Tomáš Pospěch, Tenkrát na Východě. Češi očima fotografů 1948-1989 / Once Upon a Time in the East. Czechs through the Eyes of Photographers, 1948-1989, KANT, Praha 2009. Vladimír Birgus - Jan Mlčoch, Česká fotografie 20. století, KANT, Praha 2009. Vladimír Birgus - Jan Mlčoch, Česká fotografie 20. století. Průvodce, Uměleckoprůmyslové muzeum a KANT, Praha 2005. Vladimír Birgus, Eugen Wiškovský, Torst, Praha 2005. Vladimír Birgus, Evžen Sobek. Ecce homo, Brno 2004. Vladimír Birgus, Jiří Křenek, KANT, Praha 2004. Vladimír Birgus - Jan Mlčoch (eds.), Jaroslav Rössler – fotografie, koláže, kresby, KANT, Praha 2003. Vladimír Birgus (ed.), Institut tvůrčí fotografie FPF Slezské univerzity v Opavě. Diplomové a klauzurní práce 1998-2003 / Institute of Creative Photography, Silesian University in Opava. Diploma and Final Portfolis 1998-2003, Slezská univerzita a KANT, Opava a Praha 2003. Vladimír Birgus, Jaroslav Rössler, Torst, Praha 2001. Vladimír Birgus, František Drtikol, KANT, Praha 2000. Vladimír Birgus - Jan Mlčoch, Akt v české fotografii / The Nude in Czech Photography, KANT, Praha 2000, 2005. Vladimír Birgus- Antonín Dufek - Margit Zuckriegl, Laterna Magica. Einblicke in eine Tschechische Fotografie der Zwischenkriegszeit, Rupertinum, Salzburg 2000. Vladimír Birgus (ed.), Česká fotografická avantgarda 1918-1948, KANT, Praha 1999. Vladimír Birgus - Miroslav Vojtěchovský, Česká fotografie 90. let / Czech Photography of the 1990s, KANT, Praha 1998. Vladimír Birgus, Jindřich Marco - Karel Cudlín: Izrael 50, Argo, Praha 1998. Vladimír Birgus - Miroslav Vojtěchovský, Jistoty a hledání v české fotografii 90. let / Certainty and Searching in Czech Photography of the 1990s, KANT, Praha 1996. Vladimír Birgus - Jindřich Marco, Hořká léta – Evropa 1945-1947, Orbis, Praha 1995. Vladimír Birgus, Fotograf František Drtikol, Prostor, Praha 1994. Vladimír Birgus - Reinhold Misselbeck - Miroslav Vojtěchovský, Tchechoslowakische Fotografie der Gegenwart, Museum Ludwig, Köln – Edition Braus, Heidelberg 1990. Vladimír Birgus - Antonín Braný, František Drtikol, Odeon, Praha 1988, 1989. Vladimír Birgus, Milan Borovička, Profil, Ostrava 1984. Vladimír Birgus, Miroslav Bílek, Profil, Ostrava 1982.