Libuše Jarcovjáková
Since the 1970s, Libuše Jarcovjáková has been visually mapping her life and recording her feelings through striking images.
Libuše graduated from the Film and Television Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU) in Prague. While she was working at the gravure printing press in Smíchov, Prague, she created her first major collection of photo documentary - Night Shift. At the end of the 1970s she spent three creative residencies in Japan.
Throughout the 80s, she photographed the Roma and Vietnamese communities in Czechoslovakia, as well as the T-Club in Prague, a well-known bar in the LGBTQ+ community. After 1985, she moved to West Berlin, to the Turkish district of Kreuzberg. While supporting herself with menial jobs, she photographed and wrote about her experiences.
After 1992, she returned to the Czech Republic and began teaching photography at a number of art institutes. Her photographic work was first publicly recognised in the Czech Republic in 2017, when she published a comprehensive monograph, Černé Roky (Women Publishing House), a book that straddles the line between a visual diary and a literary journal.
She became known worldwide in 2019 after her solo exhibition at one of the most important photography festivals in the world - Les Rencontre d'Arles in France, in conjunction with the publication of her book Evokativ. This exhibition was nominated for a number of awards, including the prestigious Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize. Evokativ (Untitled publishing house), which accompanied the exhibition, was included in the list of the 10 best photo books of the 2019 Paris Photo - Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards. The Guardian named Evokativ the best exhibition of 2019. Since then, Libuše has had several successful exhibitions; in 2022 she exhibited at PHotoEspaña and in Houston as part of the FOTO Fest.
Libuše Jarcovjáková has received several awards from the Association of Czech Photographers: in 2017 for the book Black Years, in 2019 she received the Personality of Czech Photography award, and Evokativ won the 2019 Book of the Year award. In 2021, she photographed the visual campaign (2021/2022 season) for the Czech National Theatre, which was nominated for the prestigious Czech Grand Design Award.
In 2021, Libuše was awarded the "Chevalier de L'ordre des arts et des lettres" by the French Ministry of Culture.
She collaborates with curator Lucía Černá - Untitled Publishing in the creation of exhibitions and book projects. (2023)
- Documentary film
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