ReD (Revue Devětsilu): modern culture monthly (1927-1931) [Czech]
Filed under magazine | Tags: · architecture, art, art theory, avant-garde, bauhaus, constructivism, czechoslovakia, dada, design, film, graphic design, literature, photography, poetry, psychoanalysis, radio, surrealism, theatre
ReD (měsíčník pro moderní kulturu / Revue internationale illustrée de l’activité contemporaine / Internationale Monatsschrift für moderne Gestaltung) was an art magazine published by members of the Czech avant-garde art collective Devětsil.
Thirty numbers were published, with the special issues on the Russian avant-garde, Bauhaus, and photography/film/typography.
Several manifestos appeared in the journal: Toyen and Jindřich Štyrský’s Artificielisme (1:1, 1927), Karel Teige’s second Poetism manifesto [Manifest Poetismu] (1:9, 1928), and the Left Front [Levá fronta]’s founding manifesto (3:2, 1929).
Edited and designed by Karel Teige
Publisher Odeon – Jan Fromek, Prague
via NYPL Digital Library
Each volume in a single PDF (low resolution):
Volume I, 1927-1928 (10 issues, 360 pages)
Volume II, 1928-1929 (10 issues, 324 pages)
Volume III, 1929-1931 (10 issues, 315 pages)
Selected issues in separate PDFs:
The Russian Issue (1:2, Nov 1927)
Foto Film Typo Issue (2:8, Apr 1929)
The Bauhaus Issue (3:5, Feb 1930, partly in German)
JPG pages (search in page annotations):
View online
See also Devětsil: Revoluční sborník (1922), edited by Jaroslav Seifert and Karel Teige, in Czech.
Comment (1)Thomas Ort: Art and Life in Modernist Prague: Karel Čapek and his Generation, 1911-1938 (2013)
Filed under book | Tags: · 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, art, art history, austria-hungary, avant-garde, cubism, czechoslovakia, history of literature, literature, philosophy, poetry
“In most histories of Europe before the First World War, modern life in Habsburg Mitteleuropa takes on a decidedly gloomy cast. Centering on Vienna in the twilight years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, such accounts describe the failure of rationalism and the rise of a dangerous politics of fantasy. This book tells a different story, highlighting a generation of Czech writers and artists distinguished by their affirmative encounter with the modern world in the first decades of the twentieth century. Novelist and playwright Karel Čapek, along with other members of his cohort, embraced the possibilities of the post-Habsburg era. Tracing the roots of Čapek’s generation to cubist art and turn-of-the-century philosophy, author Thomas Ort shows that the form of modernism they championed led not into the thickets of fascism or communism but in fact closer to liberal political ideals.”
Publisher Palgrave Macmillan, 2013
Palgrave Studies in Cultural and Intellectual History series
ISBN 1137188863, 9781137188861
276 pages
Alice Růžičková: Český dokumentární film v 80. letech: “Originální Videojournal” (2000) [Czech]
Filed under thesis | Tags: · 1980s, activism, communism, czechoslovakia, documentary film, ecology, journalism, politics, television, video, video activism
The diploma work of Alice Růžičková entitled The Czech Documentary Film in the 1980s: “Original Videojournal” analyses the origin and history of the Czech underground audiovisual periodical, produced between 1987 and 1989 by a group of Czech dissidents including Olga Havlová, Michal Hýbek, Pavel Kačírek, Jan Kašpar, Andrej Krob, Jan Ruml, Joska Skalník, Andrej Stankovič, and many others.
In the late 1987, an idea was born to not only send the video shots documenting the Czechoslovak dissident activities abroad, but also to produce a programme for the domestic audience. With the financial aid from the Czech exile centers abroad (Foundation of Charter 77, ČSDS – Czechoslovak Documentary Centre), the “Original Videojournal” editorial group acquired a video tape recorder Sony Video-8. This led to the production of video news from the dissident and alternative culture, covering political and ecological issues from the “unofficial” perspective.
The thesis first locates the origin of the journal among diverse groups in Prague, Brno and other places. Further, it contains an analysis of seven regular and two thematic programmes produced before November 1989, followed by nine special volumes made during and shortly after the 1989 revolution.
Attachments include a correspondence between Václav Havel and František Janouch, reflections about the Journal in printed underground zines, related historical texts, bibliography from the Libri Prohibiti database, script of the documentary film Zblízka Originální videojournal (dir. Alice Růžičková, 1998), and photographic documentation.
Master thesis
FAMU (Film and TV School of Academy of Performing Arts), Prague
Supervisor: Marie Šandová
78 pages
Czech TV programme series about Original Videojournal, 20 episodes, 26 min. each, 2011–2012
Original Videojournal at Monoskop wiki