Karel Cudlín (born 28 June 1960) is a Czech photographer.
Career
Cudlín was born in Prague and started taking photographs in his teens. Borrowing his father's
Exakta
The Exakta (sometimes Exacta) was a camera produced by the ''Ihagee Kamerawerk'' in Dresden, Germany, founded as the Industrie und Handels-Gesellschaft mbH, in 1912. The inspiration and design of both the VP Exakta and the Kine Exakta are the wo ...
and supported by his uncle, a photography enthusiast, Cudlín soon started photographing the
Romani people
The Romani (also spelled Romany or Rromani , ), colloquially known as the Roma, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group, traditionally nomadic itinerants. They live in Europe and Anatolia, and have diaspora populations located worldwide, with sig ...
of
Žižkov
Žižkov is a cadastral district of Prague, Czech Republic. Most of Žižkov lies in the municipal and administrative district of Prague 3, except for very small parts which are in Prague 8 and Prague 10. Prior to 1922, Žižkov was an indep ...
, the suburb where he lived. Cudlín attended a social work school that, combined with a short stint in a low-grade job, provided him with the proletarian credentials needed to join the Fotografia cooperative. The cooperative sent him to a ballroom in the
Lucerna area where he overcame considerable technical difficulties in photographing young people at night. A third area that he explored was
Communist Party
A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ...
rituals.
After a year at Lidová škola umění, Cudlín was in 1983 admitted to
FAMU, which was very free by
Czechoslovakia
, rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי,
, common_name = Czechoslovakia
, life_span = 1918–19391945–1992
, p1 = Austria-Hungary
, image_p1 ...
n standards of the time. He graduated in 1987, and soon found work at the weekly ''
Mladý svět
''Mladý Svět'' (''Young World'') was a magazine published in Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic. It contained editorials, comics and other works. It is not very well known outside of the Czech Republic and Slovakia but inside these countries ...
''. During the summer of 1989, Cudlín made a cycle of photographs depicting
East Germans
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...
escaping from their country with the help of the West Germany, West German embassy in Prague.
Following the Velvet Revolution and subsequent democratization of Czechoslovakia, he embarked on a series of relationships with other Czechoslovakian media sources, among them the newspapers ''Prostor'' and ''Lidové noviny'' and the ČTA agency. After ČTA closed in 1996, Cudlín became a freelance photographer. Additionally, he has worked as one of the personal photographers of the former Czech President Václav Havel.
Cudlín's new themes included refugees, Israel, the lingering Soviet forces within Czechoslovakia, Valdice prison, and, by accident, Ukraine (a putsch had interrupted Cudlín and Vojta Dukát's plan to go to Moscow). He has continued with a small number of long-term projects (Ukrainian workers in Prague, hypermarkets), photographed in black and white.
Awards
Cudlín has won seven awards in the major photographic competition in the Czech Republic, Czech Press Photo.
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Notes
Books of Cudlín's works
*''Photographie.'' Prague: Torst (publishing house), Torst, 1994.
*(With Jindřich Marco.) ''Izrael (50).'' Prague: Argo, 1998. .
*Silverio, Robert. ''Karel Cudlín.'' Prague: Torst, 2001. Text in Czech and English.
*(With Pavla Jazairiová.) ''Izrael a Palestina, Palestina a Izrael.'' V Praze: Radioservis, 2001. .
*(With Tomki Němec.) ''Havel - fotografie = Havel - photographs.'' Liberec: Knihy 555, 2002. .
*(With Monika MacDonagh-Pajerová.) ''Portrét české společnosi na prahu Evropy = Portrait of Czech society in the threshold of Europe.'' Brno: Petrov, 2004. .
External links
Cudlín's site
(requires Flash)
detailed essay to accompany a 2004 exhibition at the Jewish Museum in Prague
Interview with Cudlín
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cudlin, Karel
1960 births
Photographers from Prague
Living people
Portrait photographers
Academy of Performing Arts in Prague alumni