When he first visited the Czech Republic in the 1990s, the rising photographer Matthew Monteith was taken by the details of ordinary life in this country in transition. Captivated by the ineffable--a mood, a sense of place--he made repeated visits, and from 2001-2003 traveled throughout the country with his camera, in hopes of creating a contemporary allegory that would reflect the ideals he had observed in old postcards and in Czech photography from the 1920s and 30s. Combining restraint, brilliant color and a certain thoughtful attention to the uncanny within the everyday, Monteith's photographs parallel a venerable tradition staked out by masters like Joel Sternfeld, and embodied in contemporary work by younger photo-documentarians like Alec Soth. Though at times foreboding, an energetic optimism and humor pervades Monteith's work. His meticulously composed and beautifully produced images focus on individuals, landscapes, oddly stilled cityscapes and the worn traces of the country's long and complex history. Czech Eden, Monteith's first monograph, is not a literal description or documentation, but rather a parable in which the viewer encounters individuals and environments that are cohesive yet contradictory, beautiful but unsettling.
Reviews
"...Monteith weaves together a conceptual narrative of truths to represent themes of isolation in postmodern society." -- Larissa Leclair --Photo-Eye
"Czech Eden is not a literal description or documentation, but rather a parable in which the viewer encounters individuals and environments that are cohesive yet contradictory; beautiful yet unsettling." --Photo District News
"Czech Eden mixes landscapes with portraiture, still lives, and even the occasional street photography scene in a way that has become quite common in contemporary photography, and the results are very appealing." -- Jörg Colberg --Conscientious blog
"Monteith's Czech Republic is not a land of castles and cathedrals and frothy beer mugs. It's a vision of paradise lost, a lonely landscape of unrealized dreams and alienated people still struggling to make the transition from the old world to the new. It reflects, first and foremost, Monteith's discovery of a place that had essentially been hidden from Western eyes for 40 years." -- Frank Kuznik --The Prague Post
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