PRAGUE Photo Album

Boogie Heidi

PRAGUE Photo Album

Capture life

CZECHOSLOVAKIA. Prague. August 1968.

Warsaw Pact Troops invade Prague.

In front of the Radio Headquarters. photography: Josef Koudelka (Czech/French, b. 1938) In 1955, several Communist states in Central and Eastern Europe joined the Soviet Union in signing the Warsaw Pact, an agreement that bound participants to mutual defense in the case of military aggression on the part of non-member nations.

In 1968, however, Warsaw Pact members turned their forces on one of their own founding countries. In January of that year, under the reformist leadership of Alexander Dubček, Czechoslovakians began to experience a period of looser government control and increased freedom. To other participants in the Warsaw Pact, the Soviet Union in particular, this so-called “Prague Spring” set a dangerous precedent. In an effort to quash the problem, on the night of August 20 through 21, Warsaw Pact troops staged an invasion of Czechoslovakia.

Josef Koudelka, an aeronautical engineer who had recently taken up photography full-time, caught the invasion of Prague in a series of powerful images, including the one seen here. This photograph of an arm, with fist clenched and watch face up and center, is at once mundane and momentous; the simple act of marking the time serves to bear witness to the violent events of that summer. Koudelka aims the camera downward to fill the frame with the empty street, cutting off the open sky in the process. This compositional device, along with the wide, deserted boulevard leading to a square in the distance, effectively conveys a sense of tragedy, loss, and repression.

CZECHOSLOVAKIA. Prague. October 2013.

Boogie & Hieid expect to Prague.

In front of the National Museum.

photography: Boogie Chiu (Czech/Hong Kong, 2013) Standing in the street, we were shaken and stirred. The city was colonialized by other countries. As an immortal city, as a romantic town, for century she has been listed as a world cultural heritage.

w o b n Rai

Cesky Krumlov

I will r

remember

Rudolfinum

john lennon wall Prague 14:45pm 17-10-2013