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Views from the Window of my Flat
Jiří Hanke Views from the Window of my Flat / Pohledy z mého okna
6.11.2013
In September 1981, Jiří Hanke photographed workmen cutting down the linden trees in front of his house in the town of Kladno. At the time, Czechoslovakia was occupied by Soviet tanks, the country♙s social and political life had been stifled, and Czechs had withdrawn to the privacy of their homes and weekend cottages. Hanke looked out from this private world onto the street, and occasionally photographed this view from his window. He continued doing so even after the 1989 revolution – all the way until January 2003, when he retired and had to leave his employee flat.
In his extensive long-term project Views from the Window of My Flat (1981-2003), photographer and gallerist Jiří Hanke has created a legendary work of Czech photography. Through the “fate” of one street in Kladno, he captures in a unique manner the Normalization era and society’s subsequent transformation during the 1990s. Above all, he makes distinctive use of the possibilities available to photography while addressing the phenomenon of time and offering a unique witness to everyday moments that are like concentrated snapshots of the passing of time.
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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.
