What has always interested me most in Miloslav Kubeš’s photographs is his individual view of the world. Almost all his life he explored the most fundamental philosophical questions. From his youth, when he built an astronomical telescope, he questioned who we were, where we were going and what our position in society and in the universe in general was. He did not abandon these issues even as a student of philosophy or, later, when he lectured at university.
Miloslav Kubeš was an amateur photographer. The word “amateur” is not intended to degrade the word “photographer”. On the contrary, an amateur takes photographs as a matter of personal interest, for the joy and love of it. Kubeš saw, in photography, the possibility of seeking and discovering the world around him, a way of perceiving and evaluating reality and, in particularly a means of finding himself. He also addressed the theory of photography, and his contributions were regularly published in the quarterly Revue fotografie in the 1960s. By studying these texts, I was able to glean some of the views he held on the photographic document at the time. In his photographs, Kubeš succeeded in interweaving implacable reality with visual poetry. One of those texts also discusses photography and poetry. A comparison of photography and poetry, for example, can be found in Hrubín’s Až do konce lásky [Until the End of Love]: "In every man there is something precious that draws us to him, in everything there is something special to make us look at it again and again, in every minor incident there is hidden, as though in a kernel, a spreading tree. If we pass a man listlessly, without thinking, if we overlook a seemingly ordinary thing, if we fail to experience with deep sincerity a moment which apparently offers us nothing, we can be sure that we have lost something from life."
Following the spirit of these words, Kubeš tries "to see the intrinsic value of things below their surface, to discover their fate, their relationship to their surroundings, and their relationship to man. He seeks to understand their deeper meaning and not just satisfy himself with immediate, isolated and superficial perception."
From the periodicals and books available to him, Kubeš was familiar with the photography of the Czechoslovak and foreign photographers of the time. His view of the "everyday poetry" (poezie všedního dne) movement is that has already had its time, but acknowledges that "it is not too difficult to make ‘beautiful’ pictures where the subject itself is clearly beautiful and interesting, that beauty and interestingness can be found even in those things and phenomena past which hundreds of people walk with disregard, and that this is also incomparably more difficult and demanding.” Therefore, Kubeš criticizes everyday poetry for the fact that all that has been poeticized and requited is the ordinariness and a momentary impression without deeper thought or feeling. It is here that I see a fundamental difference separating Kubeš’s photography from many of his fellow enthusiastic amateur photographers. Kubeš thinks about and justifies the significance of each image. He has subjects and favourite places to which he is fond of returning. In this respect, we can view the racing stadium in Chuchle, Matěj Fair, Letná Plain, behind the scenes at the circus and, in particular, we can join him in watching events around the water. Water is a theme running through his life, perhaps because he comes from Bošilec, a small village with a large pond in South Bohemia. In Prague, he is attracted to the Vltava and the people around it. Nor does he go to the races in order to take pictures of the horses or jockeys, but mainly to watch people and their typical gestures. He looks for isolated individuals in the midst of a crowd or bored characters in the middle of a party. He tries to photograph by stealth, but not at the expense of the picture. He can click away without disturbing the atmosphere of the moment. He is very sensitive and responsive to the situations in which he finds himself. He is also keen on taking pictures at stations and in the countryside, but systematically avoids crowded political and religious events. He always photographs alone.
He is fully aware that the photographer’s chances of obtaining an expressive image are limited to one or at most a few frames capturing just a fraction of a second of reality. He says: "This does however have its advantage: in life there are empty moments that say nothing, but there are also moments which are packed with events. Events, moods and feelings are concentrated in these moments as though in the focus of the camera. To express and capture such a moment, for example as a portrait, it is necessary to have a good knowledge of human psychology, the physiognomy of the human face, and to be capable of expressing oneself in innovative contexts and forms..."
Kubeš used a Flexaret twin-lens camera with a 6x6 cm negative format. This subconsciously induced him to compose his pictures as squares. Although he developed his contemporary enlargements in rectangular formats in keeping with the time, after prior consultation with the author I have taken the liberty of presenting the photographs in their original square format. He also briefly photographed with a cine-camera. I have quite deliberately separated the two styles. A selection of fewer than a hundred of photographs from more than ten thousand negatives has made its way into your hands. I do not want to be drawn here into any traditional classification by setting out the contemporary context, or into comparing his work with that of other photographers. What is certain is that Miloslav Kubeš definitely belongs to the history of Czech photography.
Daniel Šperl, Ph.D.
curator