Marginal and exceptionally voyeuristic, in his methods Tichy could be described as an “art brut photographer” yet he is also marked by classical influences. Though his images are produced with poor-quality equipment and carelessly shot, they offer an idiosyncratic and almost hallucinatory vision of a fantastical, eroticised reality. With his endless return to the same subject and the volume and regularity of his production, Tichy’s work draws many parallels to certain practices of conceptual art during the same period.
For thirty years Tichy took up to one hundred photographs each day, pursuing his artistic obsession with the female form. Dressed in rags and using a homemade camera, Tichy captured the universe of the people in the small town of Brno in the Czech Republic. This discovery of photography saved him from madness and the claustrophobia of political dictatorship. Though his work today is widely exhibited, Tichy worked for years as an unknown artist in complete isolation on the periphery of the art world.
This exceptional book brings together a selection of Tichy’s portraits.
