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Saudek (French and German Edition) | 
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| Author: Daniela Mrazkova
Creator: Jan Saudek
Publisher: Taschen
Category: Book
List Price: $70.00
Buy New: $44.10
You Save: $25.90 (37%)
New (5) Used (1) from $44.10
Avg. Customer Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 218685
Format: Illustrated
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 443
Shipping Weight (lbs): 8.7
Dimensions (in): 13.3 x 11.6 x 1.8
ISBN: 3822830208
Dewey Decimal Number: 770
EAN: 9783822830208
ASIN: 3822830208
Publication Date: November 1, 2006
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 1 to 4 months
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Product Description
The theater of sensual dreams The Czech Republic has long been a land of mystery and magic, home to alchemists, artists, and the original bohemians, all of them weavers of spells, creators of fantastic worlds of the imagination. Internationally famous Czech photographer Jan Saudek is no exception, and equally as uncompromising in pursuit of his own unique vision. For over four decades Saudek has created a parallel photographic universe, a two-dimensional home full of longing, peopled with the most extraordinary characters and colored by desire. The timeless strength of his hand-tinted photographs lies in their poetic compositions and their forcefulat times ribaldpictorial language, with its overtones of medieval genre pictures and Baroque mythology. Rejecting the traditional beauty in his famous nude photographs, Saudek shows the distinctively different: old women, fat women, children; real people in tableaux vivants that remind us of everything from surreal early movies to fin-de-siecle carnival nights. They exist outside time, a uniquely colored and almost mythical theater of dreams. Covering his debut in the 1950s through his lesser-known work to recent images, this dazzling collection offers us the true "velvet revolution," fertile and unsettling images from the dreams we might still have.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
Fantastic! October 22, 2008
Fantastic! Simply the best Saudek book thus far. I wouldn't miss this one.
Alchemy: The Art of Jan Saudek September 3, 2008
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
Jan Saudek, the leading art photographer from the Czech Republic, is a dazzling artist who has found his own medium of expression for his fertile imagination. This thorough, splendidly produced (Taschen) monograph, edited by the esteemed curator and critic Daniela Mrazkova, succeeds at every level: these are the finest 'reproductions' of Saudek's difficult, manipulated photographs available today and the accompanying biographical information is as richly detailed and illustrated as the body of work is explored. This is a large, heavy art book, now made affordable thanks to Amazon's pricing. It deserves the attention of those who respect art on the edge as well as collectors who appreciate the position Saudek has achieved internationally in the world of fine art.
'Our life is a journey, a journey to the end of night' is a phrase from Saudek, quoted by editor/essayist Daniela Mrazkova, in the opening biography of the artist, a biography that includes Saudek's birth in Prague in 1935, his internment in a Polish concentration camp for Jews, his survival and early life in Czechoslovakia, military service, multiple marriages and children, and his immigration to the United States where his reputation as an enfant terrible of photographic art grew steadily. All aspects of this interesting, diversified life are accompanied by photographs of the artist and his influences. They prepare the way very well for the generous catalogue of Saudek's unique art that follows.
For those who are new to Saudek's art, this volume will explain his techniques thoroughly. Beginning as a black and white photographer, Saudek soon appreciated the fact that his vision of the world he wished to capture was a combination of reality pushed to extremes and fantasy overlay - and his finished products became hand colored enhanced images of physical feats, anatomical variations from normal, homage to the history of art, and explorations of sexuality that never offend but rather celebrate variants of dreams that seem to have no limits. He places himself in many of the works and seeks out the spectrum of models that range from the massively obese to the aged to the emaciated to midgets to accompany his tableaux vivants. Many of his works are narrative: one particularly beautiful work is entitled 'The Love Story' and is a sepia toned series of 12 images of a white rose in a glass of water beside a girl's photograph, the series showing the bud blooming then losing its petals and finally extracted from the glass which is then removed from the series in the last frame - a simple but deeply moving story of a love eroding to nothingness.
Saudek's images are grouped into exhibitions: The Family of Man, Memories, Forbidden Fruit, The Game, The Fight, The Window, Tales of Love and Ruination, To Be or Not to Be, Every Woman is the Most Beautiful in the World, Sinners, Warriors of God, Paradise Lost, and A Journey without End, a Cry in Vain. Placing his photographs in context with theme allows the viewer a gallery walk where the complete idea of that exhibition can be explored. The images may disturb some, but isn't that a part of fine art's mission - to think in ways outside our frame of reference? In all the works are reproduced carefully, including the all-important margins of each photograph in which Saudek makes meaningful notes and manipulates time, a concept that remarks on his vision of the 'journey to the end of night'. It would be difficult to imagine a finer art monologue than this, and it is apropos that such an important and fascinating artist receive such a fine tribute to a long and very productive life. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, September 08
You need this book June 18, 2008
I saw Jan Saudek's work at his gallery in Amsterdam (1970's) and then on a series of postcards. Finally, I saw his stuff on the walls of Good Vibrations in San Francisco and realized two things about him:
1. He hand paints his black and white images.
2. He produced his images during the worst days of communist repression.
He is a genius, His book will take your breath away. It is very representative of his work. You would have to see mounted pictures with the actual brush strokes to see what magic he truly weaves. You need this book.
The restrospective: a story in many chapters May 20, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This remarkable (and massive) collection traces at least forty years of Jan Saudek's career, from the late 1950s to the end of the 1990s, or maybe a bit beyond. Like any living, developing artist, Saudek's technique, subject matter, and style have developed too. As a result, broad generalizations apply poorly to this collection's full breadth.
The earliest work collected here tends strictly towards black and white, and the earliest chapter has a family oriention. With no clear break between phases of his career, Saudek's work in the early 1970s tended toward a more documentary style. Then, by the late 1970s, many features of his later work had emerged: studio nudes, often hand-colored, often set against a decrepit background, and with increasing sexual content. Paired photos, clothed and nude, appeared, as did time sequences. Saudek's quirky sense of humor came to the fore, also, expressed in terms of all the other features of his work. For example, the clothed/not and sexual themes came together in gender-bending sequences (like The Wedding, parts I and II) that elicit giggles along with confusion and careful attention. By the 1990s, Saudek's work added models well outside the usual range considered attractive, which added new facets to the sexuality and humor.
This huge, beautiful book makes it easy to trace Saudek's changing esthetic through his images. Readers (in English, French, and German) also see biographical information covering Saudek's life inside and outside the gallery world. A book this vast and a career so varied can't be summarized briefly except to say this: it's an outstanding presentation of a strange and wonderful collection.
-- wiredweird
PS: The cover picture is actually half of something - the other half changes its meaning completely!
Lovesick teen nightmare April 4, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Sometimes there are masterpieces hard to comment of.
Perhaps, works by Daniela Mrazkova known as Jan Saudek belong to this category.
Live, deep, gay colours depicting controversially for even a modern viewer explicitly manifested homoeroticism and nudity, are surely shocking today as much as hundred years ago for then contemporaries.
A very special picturesque philosophy of Jan Saudek places these masterworks in a line with the best in this area of visual arts immortally.
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