A System Apart

misstugui:

Miroslav Tichý

“People ask me, ‘What are you, Mr. Tichý? Are you a painter, a sculptor, or a writer?’ I reply, ‘You know who I am? I am Tarzan in retirement.’

I am a prophet of decay and a pioneer of chaos, because only from chaos something new emerge. 

I cut a lens out of Plexiglas wiyh a knife, ground the lens, made a camera of wood and cardboard, and took pictures with that. Of course it worked. When I do something, it has to be precise. Truly, the lens was not precise, but maybe that’s where the art is… Then I grind the lens with various types of sandpapers, first coarse sandpaper, then finer and finer, until you can see through it beautifully. And then what? It needs to be polished, that isn’t a problem. You take toothpaste, mix it with cigarette ash, and then you polish it. And that’s what I photographed with.

I didn’t choose anything. I looked under the enlarger and whatever seemed like the world to me, I printed. But what is the world? Everything that is, that is the world. Whatever seemed like the world to me, I printed. That’s all.”