Author: | Milan Knížák |
Category: | Books, Photography, Art |
Language: | English |
Translation: | Lucie Vidmar, Pauline Huntington |
Page count: | 295 |
Binding: | Hbk |
ISBN: | 978-80-7437-077-9 |
EAN: | 9788074370779 |
Date: | 2012 |
Issue number: | 1 |
Price: | 150 EUR |
Size: | 29 x 24 cm |
Ahae (Old Korean for “child”) is an artist. In his case, this is an important claim, for Ahae had prepared himself for this path all his life in order to spend the past quarter of his life producing, with a passion bordering on obsession, a body of work that contains all the wisdom that he has amassed over time.
Ahae is not only a successful entrepreneur, but also a tireless promoter of healthy living, a man with a deep sense of social awareness, the creator of many internationally acclaimed inventions, a practitioner of stretching, taekwondo and judo, a healer, and above all a photographer who teaches us to again look around us at such simple things as trees, grass, and non-exotic animals. Ahae photographs only from the window of his room, but from this single opening he has photographed practically the entire world.
Contemporary photography is speculative, manipulated, and in search of the unusual. Ahae simply looks, free of artistic ambitions. Perhaps this is why there is no doubt that he belongs in the world of art.
Ahae is also a philosopher. Intimations of this fact can be found in his poems, but above all in his worldview, whose motto is that “man is responsible for his immediate surroundings” – something that should be remembered by people who protest against the destruction of the rainforests and melting glaciers at the poles, but he do not know how to live with the people around them. To be responsible for one’s immediate surroundings is one of the most important messages of today.
The book on Ahae is one of the most distinctive publications of the year. It is a message without pathos, but with a profound, gentle, and modest sincerity.
Czech Photography of the 20th Century, published simultaneously in Czech and English versions, is the first book to present the main trends, figures, and works of Czech photography from the beginning to the end of the last century to such a large extent. Its 517 plates include not only the most important, well-known photographs and photomontages, but also works that have long been forgotten or are published for the first time. The book is arranged in seventeen chapters, supplemented with chronologies of the most important events in twentieth-century Czech photography and history.