Pictura Gallery

Never Too Close

The four Czech artists featured in Never Too Close use photography to explore their close relationships, and the resulting works are quite personal. As the artists reach towards intimacy, one gets the sense that they are trying to close the gap between photographer and subject, to know their loved ones completely. The title, Never Too Close suggests that these relationships have reached a level closeness, and yet there is still a gap between the subject and the photographer, with room to draw closer. Even while they depict a kind of togetherness, the images hint that the chasm between one human and another is not easily bridged.

Kolčavová, Sláma and Žižka have chosen to present their photographs with unusual physicality. By eliminating the standard requisite frame, the photographers leave little barrier between the viewer and the scene. The images somehow exist concurrently in past and present tense and bring us into a slower sense of time. That slow time spent with loved ones, so dear and mysterious to the artists, is accessible to us here.

Exhibits Archive