Village People 1965 -1990

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Publisher's description

Jindřich Štreit is an exceptional chronicler and narrator. For over five decades he has described life in the countryside in the Czech regions of North Moravia and Bohemia in his black and white photographs. It is a comprehensive photographic as well as sociological study, similar in scope and artistic quality to that of August Sander in Germany or Eugene Atget in Paris.

In its own style and visual language, just grown in secret, at the extreme end of the world at that time. In reality, Sovinec is pretty much in the middle of Europe. This region is shaped by the turmoil and damage of world wars and a subsequent dictatorship, whose rituals and imagery in the everyday world of that time often seem absurd to us today.

Jindřich Štreit describes the isolation and isolation of people in the everyday life of the socialist collective. But in private life, as well as at festivals and encounters, the photographs show the joy of life, a strong community and solidarity. This becomes even clearer when compared with the recordings of the official rallies and celebrations of the state. 

The criticism of the existing living conditions was always present in the pictures and could not be understood by a totalitarian state in its frozen vocabulary and sign language other than a criticism. From the 1980s onwards, this led to a ban on publication in any form, arrests and constant controls by the state. So he remained an unknown in photographic history, despite constant photography until the end of socialism. Since the 1990s, after his rehabilitation, his pictures have been shown worldwide and are represented in the most important photographic collections. In his home country he is one of the most famous photographers as well as a valued teacher at the leading universities in the Czech Republic.