A theatre performance takes place in time. It appears for a brief moment of public presentation and vanishes into thin air after it finishes. It cannot be reproduced in the same fashion, it cannot be owned or moved. It is possible to record it, freeze, capture it in some way and tell its story.

The motion of a human body, public and private space, the image of an artistic object – the topics of the selection of contemporary Czech theatre photography are transmitted via strictly estheticized photographs and random quickies. Based on the association with the topic, the exhibition compares current trends in the genre and a few fragments of the works by outstanding figures of Czech theatre photography across the 20th and 21st centuries.

The exhibits were part of the past two years of the Theatre Photography Showcase (2018 and 2020), historic artifacts were borrowed from authors’ private collections and ATI collections. Collection, preservation, research, presentation, and popularization of Czech theatre photography across two centuries is one of the main research projects of the Arts and Theatre Institute.

For more information, please visit the website of the Czech Center Paris: in Czech / in French.