Jan Pohribný

Jan Pohribny was born in Prague on February 8th 1961. He has been photographing since 1969 and from his beginnings he was influenced mainly by his parents (mother was illustrator, father was art theoretician). He studied photography at Graphic Industrial High School in Prague (1980) and Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts (FTSAPA) in Prague (1986, title M.A.), in 1968 he attended a 6-month internship at Taideteollinen Korkeakoulu in Helsinki. After his masters, he is an independent photographer. From 1998, he is a part-time professor at the Institute of Creative Photography FPF at Silesia University, where he teaches landscape photography, colorful structural procedures, objects in space, and atelier practice. From 1990 he is a member of Czech Photographers Association and of Prague’s House of Photography, where he in 1992-1997 was the main coordinator of summer workshops. Since 1998, he is a founding member and the President of the Club for Renewal of Arts Culture. Since 1990 he conducts photographic workshops focusing on landscape and intermediary creation in the Czech Republic and abroad (regularly for ex. in Finland).

In his production, he in the long term focuses on arranged and conceptual photography in nature. He is interested in the relationship between the object and space, either in the trail of movement (series Pigments 1983-85), objects flying in the air (Letavci 1985-86), or its similarity taken out of context on an empty sky (Nebe, Modry Nebe [Sky, Blue Skye] 1983). From 1988 he creates reflections on cultic places of prehistoric Europe (series Nova Doba Kamena [New Stone Age]), where he creatively uses drawings of light. From 1996, he works on series JanCin, in which he confronts graphic objects from paper from Jan Cincera with natural environment. He focuses on applied photographs. He remarkably photographs for example design of Olgoj Choroj group, creates sundry calendars (for ex. for companies Transgas, or Skoda Auto), or photographic book illustrations. Occasionally, he focuses on graphic design and publicistic photography. He is working on a separate publication about the megalithic culture and holy places in Europe. He had many independent exhibitions (for ex. Beroun, Liberec, Helsinki, Boleslawiec, Prague, Kutna Hora, Ostrava, Cheb, Klenova, Sovinec, Opava, Kolin nas Rynem), he attended many significant group expositions (for ex. Fotografové z Prahy [Photographs from Prague], Darmstadt, Frankfurt a. M. and Mnichov, 1983 – Fotografie absolventů FAMU [Photographs of FTSAPA Graduates], Brno, 1985 and Prague, 1987 – Mladá česká fotografie [Young Czech Photography], Arles 1986 – 11, Prague 1988 – 37 fotografů na Chmelnici [37 Photographers in Chmelnice], Prague 1989 – Československá fotografie [Czechoslovak Photography], Arles 1990 – Mezinárodní bienále fotografie [International Biennale of Photography], Enschede 1991 – Jistoty a hledání v české fotografii 90. let [Certainty and Searching in Czech Photography in 90’s], Prague 1996, Brno, Karlovy Vary, Bratislava 1997, Berlin 1998 – Česká fotografie 90. let [Czech Photography in 90’s], Chicago, Kaunas a Vilnius 1999 – Fotografové z Prahy, [Photographs from Prague] Vratislav 2001 – Experimentální krajina [Experimental Landscape], Liberec 2001). Jan Pohribny received Czech Press Photo awards several times. His photographs are stored in Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague, Moravian Gallery in Brno, North-Bohemian Museum in Liberec, Elyse Museum in Lausanne, or in House of Photography in Paris.