The exhibition presents a selection of analogue photographs from a series that culminated
in the publication Whatever It Takes. By concluding this series and simultaneously releasing the book, the author symbolically closes a chapter of his life, while offering a glimpse into
it through his imagery.
The collection of photographs from 2019–2025 frames a period in which the author navigated his daily life accompanied by his photographic practice. The resulting exhibition reveals a confluence of the project’s starting points and central themes. Through unposed scenes, it touches upon motifs of displacement, searching, and discovery experienced on the fringes of cities and in the dead of night. The process of photography is presented here as a strengthening, continuous activity that accompanies the author’s lived experience; it becomes a medium for finding harmony – a state that is often difficult to attain during the years of coming of age.
The exhibition space is enhanced by a blurred portrait of a woman, foreshadowing the sense
of unrestrainedness and transience that permeates the series. Whatever It Takes is a raw testimony of a young person, where freedom and courage easily transform into a hostile labyrinth. The author photographed the shattered glass on a street in Athens immediately after a creative act of “writing into the public space” was interrupted by an escape and the detention of his companion, followed only by long moments of waiting and uncertainty. The image of shards
on the asphalt fixes a reality that was falling apart at that moment.
The shots thematize the finding of solutions. The photograph of a car hood covered in a layer
of fallen leaves is a record of the discord between external festivities and an internal feeling of not belonging. Yet, within the composition of this oppressive situation, a solution arises: the car is ready to drive, and a sudden disorientation transforms into a concrete plan and determination. Things are set in motion. A visual counterpoint to these dynamic stories is provided by a study
of branches resting in water, expressing a gradual finding of life’s tranquility. In this still life, the author explores the autonomy of nature and reflects on his own desires. The image is a quiet manifesto opposing the spectacle of entertainment and the constant productivity demanded from all directions.
Somewhere behind a curtain of water vapor lies the endless monotony of streets typical of an American residential suburb. During a Christmas Eve walk, feelings of futility were washed over
by a patina of fog, which blurred the contours of the predictable and materialized a bubble of isolation. The photograph thus serves as a visual record of introspection that runs through the entire series. The image of mannequins in the windows of closed shops was taken in a border town where one can get on coal trains. Trapped in an endless gesture simulating an idea of the ideal, they stand as the conclusion of
curator:
Galerie SPZ
Pštrossova 8, 110 00 Praha 1 www.galeriespz.com
this gradually recorded experience with time. Another layer of the series is adventure, the energy of which, however, runs alongside episodes of uncertainty and agonizingly long waiting in railyards and on journeys without a timetable. Yet, one can find much that is stimulating in a certain degree of surrender determined by the loss of control over one’s own direction, as long as we are not deterred by coal dust on our faces and the sudden arrival of heavy rain.