“Visual affairs” is how Jan Lesák (born 1984), a student at the Photography Studio of the Faculty of Art and Design (Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem) summarizes his works. To a great degree, his series combine various principles of appropriation. They work within a broad spectrum of photographic archives, as well as with film themes and visuals. Still, it is not “recycling” in the truest sense of the word. Rather than the gleaner or scavenger, Jan instead resembles a programmer, combining separate elements which each bear a specific piece of information. The elements that form the overall work are not necessarily of a material basis. To simplify the matter: the “raw materials” 1/ he employs are not just pre-existing material cultural products, but also ideas or concepts. This approach is aptly illustrated in his recent cycle Krematorium (Crematorium, 2006):
The idea of this (as the artist puts it) “strongly photographic” series resides somewhat in the background at first glance. In the initial phase of perceiving, it is reduced to a theme derived from the cult film adaptation of a novella by Ladislav Fuks entitled The Cremator (1968, dir. Juraj Herz, cinematography Stanislav Milota). Jan Lesák took his photographs in the actual building of the crematorium in Pardubice. This extraordinary Rondo- Cubist edifice (designed by architect Pavel Janák) provided a powerful backdrop for the technically polished photographs, which partly draw on Milota's groundbreaking cinematography. In fact, some of them copy Milota's monumental compositions so precisely and faithfully, that they become “stills” of a sort.
The above, however, relates only to one line of the series. This consistently observes the ceremonious nature of funereal architecture, and a cold sense of distance makes viewers feel the sinister atmosphere of both the place and the historical circumstances of the filmic story (the German Occupation of Czechoslovakia). The second part is more “playful”, but at the same time even more morbid: it takes us backstage at the crematorium, defining it by a series of bizarre still life images and details, evidently traces of the activities of the crematorium staff. These would not strike one as in any way scary in and of themselves (a forgotten comb, a bouquet), but in the present context they are as chilling as the unctuous kindliness shown by Mr. Kopfrkingel (the cremator), as portrayed in the film.
Yet the photographs of Jan Lesák do differ from the film. The atmosphere of perversity and creeping horror that lurks beneath the meticulously smooth surface is replaced here by a more contemplative tone characteristic of photography. Here too, the series refers to its own secondary plane: the artist's creative play with existing cultural products. The longer we regard Crematorium, the stronger is the feeling that through the use of objective images, Lesák is probing a space between the visuality of film and photography which remains as yet surprisingly unplumbed, where with the help of both media he defines the various ways in which each operates. Moreover, in this cycle Jan again confirms his sensibility for visual suspense, which lends his works a specific aesthetic, and offers yet another clue for incorporating Crematorium within the logical context of his work so far.
Silvie Kolevová, Prague, 2007
1/ Bourriaud N. Postproduction: Culture as Screenplay: How Art Reprograms the World. Praha: Tranzit 2004: 3-12.
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