In her photographic series, Jitka Hanzlová repeatedly observes the relationship between the individual and context in which they live. She explores the ways in which the home and its surroundings imprint themselves indelibly upon identity. Whether this involve everyday scenes from life in a North Bohemian village, portraits of women from the Afro-Caribbean community in London, or poetic images of forests, the artist’s photographs probe constantly into one of the most basic human needs, namely, the need to belong. This is an extension of her own forced exile in Essen, Germany, which became her refuge after fleeing communist Czechoslovakia 1982 and had a great influence on her.
Her heuristic investigation began in the key series Rokytník (1990–1994), her native village in the Náchod region, where she returned after the fall of the Berlin Wall and nine years of exile. Hanzlová uses the camera to rediscover a place of which she both is and is no longer a part. We see the laundry hanging in a garden full of wild flowers (Bez názvu / Untitled, 1997), a little boy playing with a goat on a hill overlooking the village (Bez názvu / Untitled, 1991), a gamekeeper with a shot deer (Bez názvu / Untitled, 1995), a happy father throwing his son into the air (Bez názvu / Untitled (Petr Flying), 1992) – these portraits of figures, objects or landscapes represent the authenticity and permanence of everyday life in a place that has become a kind of time box in a world full of options in which too much has changed over the years. The past is presented as harmonious, though extremely distant: we can no longer return.
In parallel with Rokytník she created the analogous collection Bewohner (1990–1994; German for “residents”). This transports us into the urban environment of European cities. Instead of the almost idyllic, reflected nostalgia of Rokytník we encounter a built-up, strictly structured landscape, whose residents (people and animals) seem like isolated, alienated objects. Despite the freedom of the modern “Western” world, they are imprisoned in the dehumanising, living organism of the metropolis, like a penguin trying desperately to escape through the glass of an aquarium (Bez názvu / Untitled, 1990). A similar contrast is exploited in the later work Hier (2005–2010), which places romantic shots of the Czech landscape (Bez názvu / Untitled (Hortensienbaum), 2005) alongside industrial Essen (Bez názvu / Untitled (Stadium), 2008): both places are the artist’s home, though one cannot fail to notice a certain tension.
Another genre that features in Hanzlová’s work is the portrait, especially of women, which can be traced right back to her two first cycles. As the driving force behind an entire project it is first seen in Female (1997–2000), later in Brixton (2002), and finally developed in a homage to Leonardo da Vinci entitled There Is Something I Do Not Know (2007–2013). Although thematically these are different cycles, Hanzlová does not forsake the overarching theme of identity and the basic needs of humankind to belong somewhere. In Female she turns her attention upon herself, her own personality as woman. This also creates the premise on the basis of which she identifies with portraits of all ages, nationalities and occupations (Cathana, Uptown, 1999; Mae, Coney Island, 2000). Femininity is perceived as “the first difference that, right from the start, is recorded in our passport and continuously raises many questions” [1], and this is one of the reasons the artist uses the word “female” rather than “woman”. However, this is not to attempt an objective typology of the female section of society in the style of August Sander, but more a study of female individuality, freedom, an emotional, highly sensitive, non-verbal statement.
In her following series this premise of identification with the person portrayed disappears. The photographic chiaroscuro portraits inspired by the renaissance masters in There Is Something I Do Not Know represent staged studies of the various identities a person can adopt for themselves (Bez názvu, Julia, 2011; Bez názvu, Greco, 2011), while Brixton documents a group of Afro-Caribbean women in Brixton, London, who find themselves in a situation similar to that the artist was in while in exile in Germany, experiencing the feeling of being alien in their own home Bez názvu (Nana), 2002; Bez názvu (Black), 2002).
When one looks at Jitka Hanzlová’s photographic practice, it would appear that she herself retains something of this original feeling of dislocation, even after more than thirty years of living outside her homeland. She continues to return to her native Rokytník, rediscovering its traditions and forests (the cycle Forest, 2000–2005), even as she continues to explore traditions (the cycle from Japan Cotton Rose, 2004, 2006) or identities (Horse, 2007–2014) that are alien to her Czechness. Her photographs are lyrical statements, bridges to memories that become the basis for the future [2]. It is this cyclical relationship between proximity and distance, loss and rediscovery, that allow us to confront our own identity: within a new context and with new experiences one not only loses something, but one gains something too.
[1] Jitka Hanzlová in conversation with Pavel Baňka, Fotograf issue 1 / Portrait, 2002, 42
[2] Berger, John: “Preface” in Jitka Hanzlová: Forest, Steidl, London, 2006
