Ivan Pinkava

The art of one of the most distinctive representatives of contemporary Czech and world photography, Ivan Pinkava (1961), is characterized by technical precision, formal reduction, and the use of simple composition with room for sophisticated stylistic expression. Many of Pinkava’s carefully arranged studio images address issues such as the inexorable flow of time, uncertainty, or transience, and they often evoke a sense of unease in the viewer. In terms of content his photographs, for which he chooses a hermetically sealed space, draw on archetypal human stories. He consistently works with traditional iconography, with themes such as vanitas or the memento mori, though he changes, updates, or removes their traditional meanings in order to arrive at a highly original visual language reflecting his specific way of thinking. Pinkava’s work explores basic questions associated with the meaning of existence – the course of human life, our vulnerability and fragility, and our subsequent confrontation with death. Though fascinated with the process of death, he does not view this finality negatively but rather as the beginning of something new and unknown that transcends our knowledge. The work of Ivan Pinkava can be found in numerous private collections and galleries in the Czech Republic and around the world, including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the National Gallery Prague, the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego, the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. His name was included in the German encyclopedia of world photographers, Das Lexikon der Fotografen. 1900 bis Heute.