Libuše Jarcovjáková Explained

Libuše Jarcovjáková (born 5 May 1952) is a Czech photographer and educator, based in Prague.[1] Jarcovjáková photographed nightlife, minority groups and marginalised people in the 1970s and 1980s in Prague and West Berlin, and made self portraits.[2] She made diaristic work of her hedonistic lifestyle, and of the inhabitants of a clandestine gay bar that she visited almost nightly, in 1980s Prague, where the Communist state was institutionally homophobic.[3]

Life and work

Jarcovjáková was born in Prague in what was then the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.[1] Her parents were painters.[2] She studied for an MA at the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague.[1] At the end of the 1970s she undertook a creative residency in Japan for several months.[1] In 1985 Jarcovjáková moved to West Berlin and in 1992 returned to Prague.[1] She has been teaching photography since the 1990s,[2] currently doing so at the College of Graphic Design and the Secondary School of Graphic Design[4] (VOŠ a SPŠ Grafická v Praze) in Prague.

Jarcovjáková's written diaries and photographs from Prague, West Berlin and Tokyo between 1971 and 1987, were published in the 2016 book Černé Roky (The Black Years).[5] [6]

Between 1983 and 1985, Jarcovjáková photographed the inhabitants of a clandestine gay bar in Prague, called T-Club, which she frequented visited almost every night,[3] [7] using black and white film and a flash. Her other subjects at this time were herself and Vietnamese and Cuban economic migrants. Though sex between people of the same gender was decriminalised in Czechoslovakia in 1962, people continued to be imprisoned for being openly gay.[3] [8] Because the work depicted her own sexual deviance as well as that of people at T-Club, it was not shown[3] [8] until 2008[9] and was published in 2019 as Evokativ. Sean O'Hagan, writing in The Guardian, described the work as having an "edgy diaristic approach, laying bare a life lived recklessly amid a period of political repression" [. . .] "images that pay little attention to formal concerns, but nevertheless capture a time and milieu in an uncompromising way."[10]

Jarcovjáková's life and work were the subject of the 2024 feature documentary film I’m Not Everything I Want to Be, directed by Klára Tasovská and premiered at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival.[11]

Publications

Publications by Jarcovjáková

Publications paired with others

Exhibitions

Awards

Notes and References

  1. Web site: 2019-08-25. Libuše Jarcovjáková. Rencontres d'Arles.
  2. Web site: 2019-08-25. Libuše Jarcovjáková: Nikdy jsem nefotila něco, co jsem nežila. 14 June 2019. Czech Radio.
  3. News: Tom. Seymour. 2019-08-26. Their Bodies Were Weapons: Dissident Photographers of the 1980s. The New York Times. 5 July 2019. 0362-4331. NYTimes.com.
  4. Web site: 2019-08-25. Češka Jarcovjáková je objevem festivalu v Arles. 4 July 2019. Týden.
  5. Web site: 2019-08-26. Libuše Jarcovjáková: The Black Years. Václav Havel Library.
  6. Web site: 2019-08-26. Libuše Jarcovjáková – Book of Life. fotografmagazine.cz.
  7. Web site: 2019-08-25. What to see at Les Rencontres d'Arles. 1 July 2019. British Journal of Photography.
  8. Behind the Curtain. British Journal of Photography. September 2019. 0007-1196. 78–88. 7887. 8198967765.
  9. Web site: 2019-08-25. New exhibition puts 1980s clandestine Prague gay scene in spotlight. Radio Praha. 6 August 2019 .
  10. News: Sean. O’Hagan. Sean O'Hagan (journalist). 2019-08-25. Stolen phones, British homes and wine for breakfast – Arles photography festival. The Guardian. 5 July 2019. 0261-3077. www.theguardian.com.
  11. Web site: Ještě nejsem, kým chci být I’m Not Everything I Want to Be . 2024-02-20 . www.berlinale.de . en.
  12. Web site: 2019-08-26. Nakladatelství wo-men. Nakladatelství Wo-men.
  13. Web site: 2019-08-27. Rozpomínání fotografky Libuše Jarcovjákové. 18 May 2012. Czech Radio.
  14. Web site: 2019-08-25. Libuše Jarcovjáková: T-Club. prague.tv.
  15. Web site: 2019-08-25. Libuse Jarcovjáková, les contretemps de Prague. 5 July 2019. Libération.
  16. Web site: 2019-08-25. Fotografka Libuše Jarcovjáková na festivalu fotografie v Arles. www.mzv.cz.
  17. Web site: 2019-08-26. Anglo-American University in Prague. Anglo-American University in Prague.

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