Marni Horwitz
Marni Horwitz’s series ‘Desire Despair’ depicts life in a town in the Czech Republic. On one level, it is just a good series, each of the photographs interesting or intriguing, but nothing new. However, two things really distinguish ‘Desire Despair’ from the many other good series being produced about similar subjects: first, its excellent pacing as a narrative, and second, its atmosphere, at once heightened (tense, perhaps; almost foreboding) and ghostly. The passage below is from Horwitz’s website:
In her photographic series ‘Desire Despair: Pictures from the Czech Republic’ her images reveal a duality in Czech daily life, rooted simultaneously in the beauty of its ancient traditions and the contemporary residue of the Soviet regime. Her images express the romantic and spiritual love she has for the Czech Republic as well as the isolation she experiences within it.
The love for the place doesn’t come over as strongly as the sense of isolation from it, but there is some sort of connection — perhaps love, or maybe just tenderness — visible in the treatment of people and places in some of the photographs. Below are six photographs from ‘Desire Despair’, but I recommend taking a fuller, slower look at the full set.
