Viktor Kolář: Canada 1968 - 1973

Viktor Kolář is usually associated with Ostrava. Canada, a kind of supplement to his large monograph Ostrava, shows Kolář’s less well-known photographs from his five-year Canadian exile in 1968–1973. For Kolář, the relative freedom of Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal – paid for through hard labor and the need to adapt to a different culture and customs – represented a challenge to go in search of himself but was also one way of finding a distinctive voice, way of thinking and approach to expressing himself through the photographic image.

“[…] Throughout my entire five years of Canadian exile, I was accompanied by my camera, with which I tried to capture all the things I experienced on a daily basis.
It was a permanent struggle against fear, fatigue – faithful “allies” in the life of the émigré.
To capture the “new world” without self-censorship – that was my sole task […].”

Viktor Kolář