CGD

Milan Jaroš (*1979) graduated from the Department of Photography at the Film and TV School of Academy of Performing Arts in Prague and, since 2008, has been working as a photographer for the Respekt magazine. However, he also pursues free subjects and special projects of mainly documentary and coverage nature. His activities have earned him numerous accolades in his field, such as the main prize of the 2012 Czech Press Photo Competition, Photograph of the Year.

Jaroš is a member of the generation of photographers which arrived at the turn of the analog and digital eras, and adopts the best of the two: on the one hand, the consistency of the photographic profession and the emphasis on the uniqueness of every individual shot (where we can clearly spot the influence of his professors at FAMU, Viktor Kolář and Pavel Dias); and on the other hand, the lightness of and amusement over the phantasmal aspects of the post-media reality.

Milan Jaroš spent two long years as a photographer for the controversial "movie documentary" The White World According to Daliborek, directed by Vít Klusák, which premiered in July 2017 and closely follows the "everyday" life of a young Czech neo-Nazi. Klusák's slightly spiteful but, simultaneously, critically engaged humor perfectly corresponds with Jaroš's way of perceiving the current atmosphere in the Czech Republic (which he himself has been exploring on a long-term basis in his free cycle, Bohemian Rhapsody). Contrary to Klusák's confrontational style of filming, however, the photographs by Jaroš are calmer, more self-contained, and often almost melancholic. Far exceeding the genre of film still photography, they aptly illustrate the foolishness and fragility of not only the main hero but also the entire Czech "fatherland".

Pavel Vančát