Exhibition - New York
Invasion 68: Prague
In 1968 Josef Koudelka was
thirty years old. He had committed himself to photography as a
full-time career only recently, and had been chronicling the theater,
and the lives of gypsies, but he had never photographed a news event.
That all changed on the night of August 21, when Warsaw Pact tanks
invaded the city of Prague, ending the short-lived political freedom in
Czechoslovakia that came to be known as the Prague Spring. In the midst
of the turmoil of the Soviet-led invasion, Koudelka took to the streets
to document this critical moment.
On the occasion of the
fortieth anniversary of the invasion, Aperture
Gallery and Pace/MacGill Gallery jointly present two exhibitions of
Koudelka's remarkable work made during that one week which will
celebrate the publication of Invasion 68: Prague.
The exhibition at
Aperture Gallery will be unprecedented for Koudelka: coproduced with
Magnum Photos, this installation will feature large-scale, archival
pigment
prints of a selection of work from the related publication, keeping to
the chronology of events, and including some of the seminal texts
featured in the book. The exhibition at Pace/MacGill Gallery will
incorporate this sensibility, and will also feature vintage and recent
prints of some of Koudelka's most iconic images from this work.
This one-time-only exhibition
is presented in conjunction with the
publication of a stunning monograph entitled Invasion 68:
Prague. This new volume features nearly 250
searing images, most of them published here for the first time,
personally selected by Koudelka from his extensive archive. Compelling
texts by three Czech historians, primary source material, and a
detailed chronology together provide a multi-layered, unparalleled and
chronologically sequenced look at the events of that extraordinary week
in Prague, as well as the implications for the Czech people.
Koudelka's photographs of the
invasion were miraculously smuggled out
of the country. A year after they reached New York, Magnum Photos
distributed the images, but credited them to an unknown Czech
photographer to avoid reprisals. The intensity and significance of the
images earned the still-anonymous photographer the Robert Capa Award.
Sixteen years would pass before Koudelka could safely acknowledge
authorship.
Josef Koudelka (born in
Moravia, Czech Republic, 1938) is the recipient
of the Prix Nadar, Grand Prix National de la Photographie, Grand Prix
Cartier-Bresson, and Hasselblad Foundation International Award in
Photography. Major exhibitions of his work have been held at the Museum
of Modern Art and the International Center of Photography, New York;
Hayward Gallery, London; Stedelijk Museum of Modern Art, Amsterdam; and
Palais de Tokyo, Paris. In 2007, Aperture published his bestselling
self-titled monograph. He is a member of Magnum Photos
Dates:
Aperture Gallery: 4
September - 30 October
Pace/MacGill Gallery: 4
September - 11 October 2008
Locations:
Aperture Gallery, 547 W 27th Street, New York
Pace/MacGill Gallery, 32 E 57th Street, New York
Preview Exhibition
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Aperture Gallery, 547 W
27th Street, New York
Pace/MacGill Gallery, 32 E
57th Street, New York
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