Artist: Jan Saudek (Czech, B. 1935)
Date: 1980
Size: 29 x 34 cm
Museum: USC Fisher Museum of Art (Los Angeles, United States)
Technique: Gelatin Silver Print
Two young children led into an ominous industrial landscape by a white-dressed heroine: a personification of fate. The nakedness and youth of these children, a common visual allegory for Saudek, plays into the theme of corruption. Once exposed to the corruptive environment, these children will never be the same. Saudek places the three characters in the image’s center, emphasizing both the narrative and the dominant nature of the image’s background. The young children are led into a site of electrical towers, massive silos, and dangling electrical wires — stark signs of a burgeoning industry. These symbols appeal to the negative effects of industrialization. Saudek’s photography points at the failures of the Czechoslovakian government while simultaneously engaging with the Czechoslovakian people, encouraging a critical sense of awareness of their environment. [Corey Gordon, wall text in
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