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Václav Jirásek (* 1965) is a Czech photographer whose photographs in the book Bohemian Taboo Stories complement the chapter Prague Burlesque. His photographs were also exhibited at the Bohemian Taboo joint exhibition in St. Albans, UK.
In addition to staged, portrait and landscape photography, he is also an architectural photographer. Initially, while studying, he was also involved in graphic art and painting. He worked as a teacher at the University of Applied Arts in Prague (2018-2022).
In 1980-1984 he studied applied graphics at the Secondary School of Arts and Design in Brno under Dalibor Chatrný and Ivan Chatrný. In 1984-1990, he studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague under Václav Pospíšil and Jiří Načeradský, and received the title of academic painter.
He has been photographing as an autodidact since 1988. Since 1990 he has been a freelance photographer living in Prague. He is a co-founder of the photographic group Bratrstvo (1989-1994). It was founded in 1989 in Brno by artists Martin Findeis, Václav Jirásek, Petr Krejzek, Roman Muselík and Zdeněk Sokol. They approached photography more from the perspective of a painter or an amateur. At the end of the 1980s, they created exalted, historicizing motifs with reference to the agitational figures of 1950s socialist realism. Later, from the beginning of the 1990s, they switched to figurative historicizing scenes of a romantic-symbolic and decadent character. They exclusively used large-format photographic cameras on 13 x 18 cm to 8 x 10 inch negatives, from which they made contact prints on special Foma Neovera photographic paper.
Currently, he works mostly with photography without thematic definition. The common denominator of his work is an interest in mystery, mask, irony, decadence and the recycling of art.
2021 - 2022, Reduta Theatre Brno: NdB Paintings (theatre posters)
2015 - 2016, Brno House of Arts: The World according to Irony Kool
2006, Galerie Rudolfinum: Industria
2002, Vaňkovka, Czech Centre of Photography, Prague
2001, Automatic, Fotofestival, Kolín
2000, Vaňkovka and Horizons, Galeria Fotografii pf, Poznań, Poland
2000, Automatic, Czech Centre of Photography, Prague
1999, Vaňkovka, Galerie Alan, Vienna, Austria
1998, Month of Photography, Czech Cultural Centre, Bratislava
1998, Galerie Alan, Vienna, Austria
1997, Vaňkovka, Tschechisches Zentrum, Berlin, Germany
1996, Galerie Ambrosiana, Brno
1994, Vaňkovka: Farewell to the Industrial Age, Moravian Gallery, Brno
2021, Bohemian Taboo, Collective Gallery & Art Project Space, St. Albans, UK
2011, Mutating Medium, Prague Rudolfinum
2005, Czech Photography of the 20th Century, Prague City Gallery - Municipal Library, Prague
2003, Behold the Light, Moravian Gallery, Brno
2003, Vaňkovka magicka, South Wing of the Cross Corridor Gallery, New Town Hall, Brno
2003, Homage to the Brave, Langhans Gallery, Prague
2002, Laboratory of Contemporary Tendencies, National Gallery in Prague
2002, Wilderness, Gallery Klatovy/Klenová - Gallery At the White Unicorn, Klatovy
2001, Galeria Sztuki Współczesnej, Wroclaw, Poland
2001, Nude in Czech Photography, Museum of Art, Olomouc
2001, Vintage and Contemporary Czech Photography, SK Josefsberg Studio, Portland, Oregon; Contemporary Photography in the Czech Republic, B enham Studio Gallery, Seattle, Washington, USA
2000, Nude in Czech Photography, Imperial Stables of Prague Castle, Prague
2000, The End of the World?, National Gallery in Prague
2000, Melancholy, Moravian Gallery, Brno
2000, Society before the Lens, Municipal House, Prague (reprise: Moravian Gallery, Brno)
1999, Taitemia-galleria, Kuopio, Finland
1998, Contacts, Galeria Pusta, Katowice, Posko
1994, In Sharp Light, Prague House of Photography, Prague
1997, Project Chimaera, Halle, Germany
1997, Centro de la Imagen, Mexico City, Mexico
1996, Vrais Reves Galerie, Lyon, France (together with I. Pinkava and V. Židlický)
1995, Memento Mori (joint project of V. Jirásek, R. Novák, I. Pinkava), Rudolfinum Gallery, Prague
Collective exhibitions with the group Bratrstvo.
Václav Jirásek's photographs were part of the exhibition from the PPF collections Images from the History of Czech Photography at the Václav Špála Gallery, 2011.
Museum of Decorative Arts, Prague
Moravian Gallery, Brno
Museum of Art, Olomouc
Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France
The Art Institute of Chicago, USA
Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany
Galerie der Stadt Esslingen am Neckar, Germany
PPF Group Photography Collection, Prague
2019, Bohemian Taboo Stories, photographs for the Prague Burlesque chapter, Prague
2018, Marek Matuštík, Photographer Václav Jirásek, bachelor thesis ITF Opava
2003, Jiří Zemánek, Ejhle světlo, Prague
2003, Milena Slavicka, Brotherhood, Photographer
2002, Helena Rišlinková, Lucia Lendelová, Tomáš Pospěch, Bratrstvo (catalogue of the exhibition Czech and Slovak Photography of the 1980s and 1990s, Olomouc Museum of Art), Olomouc 2002
2002, Elżbieta Łubowicz, Myth and Photography, Kwartalnik Fotografia, No. 8, 2001, Wrocław Tomáš Dvořák, Wanieck factory (catalogue), Brno
2001, Josef Moucha, Automatik, Ateliér
2001, Petr Ingerle, Kaliopi Chamonikola (ed.), Melancholy, Moravian Gallery in Brno, Brno
2001, Vladimír Birgus, Jan Mlčoch, Nude in Czech Photography, Prague
2000, James Luciana, Black and White Photography, Rockport Publischers, Gloucester
1998, Bohdan Chlíbec, Mojmír Horyna, Memento mori, photo V. Jirásek, R. Novák, I. Pinkava, Prague
1997, Josef Moucha, FOTOFO, Imago, No. 4/1997, Bratislava
1997, Vladimír Birgus, Miloš Vojtěchovský, Certainty and Search in Czech Photography of the 90s, Prague
1996, Jiří Šimáček, Brotherhood (exhibition catalogue, Moravian Gallery in Brno), Brno
1996, Antonín Dufek, Facing the End of the Century (exhibition catalogue), Prague
1994, Ladislav Plch, Vaňkovka - Farewell to the Industrial Age (exhibition catalogue, Moravian Gallery in Brno), Brno
1991, P. Pepperstein, Brotherhood, Fine Arts, No. 5
1990, Petr Balajka, Brotherhood, Czechoslovak Photography, No. 6
1990, Vladimír Birgus, Miloš Vojtěchovský, Brotherhood, Tschechoslowakische Fotografie der Gegenwart, Museum Ludwig, Köln/Braus, Heidelberg, Germany
Bohemian Taboo is a platform designed to support education, personal development, contemporary art, queer and other alternative communities, biohacking, research, aesthetic medicine, counseling, provocative events, assistance to disadvantaged groups and all other possible, so far little known, unsupported, tabooed or unjustly censored activities that overlap into the field of personal intimacy, sexuality and eroticism - erotic art and sexual wellbeing, i.e. what we call the development of erotic intelligence.
