Cities reflect their times, they are living organisms that pulse with the lives of their people. In early 2020, however, life in cities all around the globe came to a standstill, disrupted by a pandemic unlike any we’ve known before. As we learn to live in our new reality we believe that this is just a short episode of many, one that hopefully will be but a memory lost in time. This is why it’s important that we capture these moments as we move on.
This selection of photographs by Karel Cudlín / 400 ASA and Christophe Van Biesen captures with a haunting clarity extraordinary scenes from Prague and Luxembourg emptied of people, only here and there can we detect the muffled beat of the cities as they live on.
The exhibition was inaugurated on September 28, 2020 for the Czech Republic's National Day in company of Minister of Culture, Sam Tanson, Czech ambassador, Vladimir Bärtl as well as the daughter of Pierre Werner. It is on display 24/7 outside along the Maison Pierre Werner where the Embassy is located.
Karel Cudlín
Karel Cudlín is a Czech photographer and pedagogue, a legend of Czech documentary photography. Born in 1960, graduated from FAMU in Prague. He became known to the public as one of the personal photographers of President Václav Havel. In his cycles, he documented the expulsion of Soviet troops, Ukraine, the Roma, or the uprising in Valdice Prison. He focuses to the refugee topic and political conflicts in Israel, among others. He was awarded eighteen times in the Czech Press Photo competition. He exhibits regularly and his photographs are in gallery collections around the world.
Christophe Van Biesen
Christophe Van Biesen is a Belgian photographer and artist. Arriving in Luxembourg in 2008, he developed a speciality in photographing the natural and urban landscapes of his adopted country. Immortalising typical views using a unique angle and light has thus become the unmistakable characteristic of the artist’s style. Van Biesen’s photographs of landscapes have been exhibited on several occasions in the Grand Duchy. As a member of the Street Photography Luxembourg asbl, the artist also seeks to capture urban documentary scenes in his home country as well as during his travels. The images chosen by Van Biesen for this exhibition are a mixture of these two approaches to photography.
