Gypsies

Josef Koudelka
Gypsies

Photographs: Josef Koudelka

Text: John Szarkowski, Anna Farova, Willy Guy & Robert Delpire

Publisher: Aperture

135 pages

Year: 1975

Comments: Softcover, 275 x 305 mm. softcover edition, 1975. Black & white photographs. Text in english. Tiny fold (2 cm) to bottom of cover, surface wear. Overall in very good condition. Inside bright. Included in The Photobook by Parr & Badger, vol. 1, p. 230 ; The Open Book by Andrew Roth, p.304-305 ;

Josef Koudelka's photographs aim at a visual distillation of a pattern of human values : a pattern that involves theater, large gesture, brave style, precious camaraderie and bitter loneliness. The pattern and texture of his pictures form the silent equivalent of an epic drama. Koudelka's pictures seem to concern themselves with prototypical rituals, and a theater of ancient and unchangeable fables. Their motive is perhaps not psychological but religious. Perhaps they describe not the small and cherished differences that distinguish each of us from all others, but the prevailling circumstance that encloses us.

John Szarkowski