Dazed Article

"The snapshot: spontaneous, un-affected and often out-of-focus. It is a style that has long-fascinated Czech curator Michal Nanoru. His celebration of the snapshot, Only The Good Onesgoes on show later this week at Galerie Rudolfinum. A celebration of one of the most intimate forms of photography going, the exhibition is a fascinating who's who of photography featuring many Dazed favourites including Nan Goldin, Walter Pfeiffer and Corinne Day" 

- Dazed Magazine, Sian Dolding

Part of the interview taken from the article: 

Dazed Digital: What is it about the snapshot that fascinates you?

Michal Nanoru: I think the snapshot is the punk rock of photography. Just like punk rock, the snapshot transpires through a basic understanding of how to operate an instrument, and it uses its obsolescence as a guarantee that its values are based in experience and emotion. I always liked the fact that you can do so much with so little. The vibrancy, the immediacy, the personal quality, the arrogance of that I-couldn’t-care-less attitude. And the more I know snapshots the more it fascinates me what a beautiful swindle this all is.

DD: Who are your favourite photographers featured in this exhibition?

Michal Nanoru: This is the ultimate collection of my favourite photographers. The snapshot is a family photograph and I like to think of the show as of a family album of interlinked communities, in which everyone meets in colophons, invitations and mutual portraits. There is a point in the show, where you can see photos taken by Tim Barber, a photo of him by Ryan McGinley, Dash Snow’s Polaroid of McGinley, Jerry Hsu’s photo of McGinley and Snow photographed by McGinley. Elsewhere there’s William Eggleston shot by Jürgen Teller... So selecting favourites is a kind of Sophie’s choice for me. But I love the works of Garry Winogrand, Lee Friedlander,Stephen Shore, Jacob Holdt, Jürgen Teller, Ari Marcopoulos, JH Engström or Alec Soth. During the show’s preparation I definitely got much closer to Henry Wessel and Dash Snow as artists. And once I used William Eggleston’s classic book William Eggleston’s Guide as an actual guide for travel in the American South so I undoubtedly have a soft spot for his works.    

DD: You say that the snapshot has the intimacy of a diary – do you think Instagram holds that same intimacy or does it have less impact?

Michal Nanoru: It really depends on who’s holding the camera. Not every snapshot has the intimacy of a diary and not every diary is intimate or even interesting. But the difference is, that while with most of the diaries you can suspect that the author writes it with someone else in mind, or at least stylises themselves for themself, with Instagram this is taken for granted – it is a performance from the start.

Images shown in the Exhibition 

Corrine Day

Dash Snow

Daido Moryiama

Barbara Crane

Jurgen Teller

Mark Morisroe 

Stephen Shore