Dana Kyndrová | WOMAN - Εικόνα

Photography Exhibition

Through a series of 48 photographs, the exhibition «WOMAN» by Dana Kyndrová aims to realistically - sometimes humorously and with a wink – present moments in which the role of women is highlighted, at times dominant and other times hidden in the shadows but still necessary. Kyndrová’s pictures cover a large period starting in the mid ‘70s until the beginning of the 20th century and make no distinction based on age, country, religion, profession or other features. Motherhood, tenderness, care, work, entertainment, allure, resilience, are captured momentarily in Kyndrová’s camera inviting us to admire and at the same time reflect on the essence of women’s presence in our daily life, in small or bigger deeds, in everything that makes our life a whole. 

Dana Kyndrová studied French and Russian at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Prague, graduating in 1979. She spent ten years at the Department of Languages, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Czech Technical University, and after November 1989 joined the Department of Languages, Academy of Performing Arts. She has been a freelance photographer since 1992. She lives in Prague. She started taking photographs when she was 18, and has always specialized in black-and-white humanist photography. She has staged numerous exhibitions at home and abroad and is the author of eight publications: e.g. Woman Between Inhaling and Exhaling (2002), Departure of Soviet Troops (2003), Subcarpathian Ruthenia (2007), with her mother Libuše, Algerie-Togo (2009), The Rituals of Normalization / Czechoslovakia in the 1970s and 1980s (2011) and Russians … Their Icons and Desires (2015). 

In 2006, she was awarded a Prague Grant to document the lives of homeless people in Prague. 

Besides her own photographic output, in recent years she has devoted some of her time to curatorship and other organizational activities related to photography. She is the author of a monograph on Miloň Novotný (2000), the publication 1945 Liberation … 1968 Occupation / Soviet Troops in Czechoslovakia (2008) and Jan Palach 16–25.1.1969 (2009). 

The Association of Czech Professional Photographers named her “Czech Photography Person of the Year 2008” for her curatorial work.

Curatorial Statement

Youth, motherhood, power, affection, maturity, love, resilience, protection, patience; even though the feminine gender does not exist in all languages, the notions conveyed by these words often – if not always – refer to women, archetypal feminine figures, religious as well as contemporary symbols. 

The woman as seen through Dana Kyndrová’s lens is not separate from the rest of the world, she has her own position within it, sometimes as a protagonist, sometimes as an equal, and sometimes acquiring a supportive role. Without prejudice, inhibition or discrimination, Kyndrová’s women are all different among themselves and yet they are all one. Her poetic black and white photographs, with an emphasis on forms, figures, and gazes, start from 1974 Czechia, wander through Northern England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Poland, Russia, and Slovakia, and return to the – now so different – 21st century Czechia, though always retaining the same venturous, bold at times, and even humorous viewpoint towards her subject matter: the eternal woman. 

Seemingly opposite roles, parallel lives, pathways (taken as a choice or as a one-way street), feature as unique and interact balancing on the beam of a society that remains male dominated. 

The exhibition WOMΑN by Czech photographer Dana Kyndrová complements the multithemed palette of the Women of the World Festival Athens with athletes, dancers, protesters, workers, mothers, grandmothers, spouses, femininities, women of the 20th and the 21st centuries, eternal women, women of life: faces that consciously exist within the frame and wink at the viewers with meaning and secret knowledge, even when they don’t look towards them. 

Christina Kalligianni, APW Curator 

A Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC) production, as a part of WOW Athens 2023 Festival, in collaboration with the Athens Photo World and the Czech Center Athens.
 

CURATORS
Thanassis Stavrakis / Christina Kalligianni 

The book "Woman" by Dana Kyndrová is available at the SNFCC Store.

01/04/2023 - 02/07/2023

Stavros Niarchos Park Perimeter

See also