Jiri Kolar in Exile: Ubiety and Identity in Two Views of Prague

 
 
 
 

Jiri Kolar in Exile: Ubiety and Identity in Two Views of Prague

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Title: Jiri Kolar in Exile: Ubiety and Identity in Two Views of Prague
Author: Zullo, Douglas R.
Description: This dissertation explores the exile period work (1979-1999) of the Czech-born writer and artist Jiri Kolar, with particular focus on his two series Kafkova Praha (Kafka’s Prague) and Haskova Praha (Hasek’s Prague). These two series are examined in the context of Kolar’s role in the development of Czech modernism in the twentieth century, his dual status as a poet and visual artist, the series’ connections to the writers for which they are named (Franz Kafka and Jaroslav Hasek), and the artist’s complex relationship with his homeland during his absence from it. Both series illustrate aspects of Kolar’s struggle with his cultural and national identity, as well as his pursuit of a means of expression that could combine characteristics of poetry and visual art. The motifs of concealment, revelation, displacement, ubiety, language, and identity emerge with powerful clarity in Kolar’s work during the two decades around which this dissertation revolves. Although Kolar created Kafka’s Prague just after his forced separation from Czechoslovakia and Hasek’s Prague just after his return home twenty years later, I argue that these two sets of manipulated photographs are not clear brackets around the artist’s exile period. When studied together and with the historical circumstances and events that surround them in mind, they provide important insight into the experience of the displaced east European during and after the Communist period.
Permanent Link: http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1132666987
http://hdl.handle.net/2374.OX/5840
Date: 2005

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