Presented in conjunction with When Monsters Dream, this program of rare Super 8mm films by Jan Ságl offers an intimate look at the Czechoslovak underground as art, resistance, and a way of life under political pressure. The evening will also include a guided tour of the exhibition with co-curator and Czech Center director Tereza Porybná.
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Rare Super 8mm films by photographer and filmmaker Jan Ságl open an intimate window into the Czechoslovak underground of the 1970s. Presented in conjunction with the exhibition When Monsters Dream, the program traces a line from the historical underground to the contemporary post-underground world of Střešovické Kramle, whose work is featured in the gallery. The evening will also include a guided tour of the exhibition with co-curator and Czech Center director Tereza Porybná, offering insight into its themes and its connection to Ságl’s work.
“All forms of totalitarianism, and power in general, do not like when you're different. They're always bothered by difference, because when you're different, you're free.” — Jan Ságl
A distinctive figure in Czechoslovak and Czech photography, Ságl is widely regarded as the visual chronicler of the Czech underground of the 1960s and 1970s. Many of the iconic images of The Plastic People of the Universe and The Primitives Group were taken by him, alongside countless informal snapshots of underground life. Between 1969 and 1972, he also collaborated with his wife, artist Zorka Ságlová, documenting and contributing to her landscape installations. At the same time, he became one of the pioneers of Czech color photography, working with color at a moment when black-and-white photography still dominated the artistic field.
This program focuses on Ságl’s lesser-known moving-image work from 1971 to 1974, when he created a series of twelve short black-and-white films. Using a Super 8 camera, he documented concerts, happenings, rituals, and everyday moments within the underground community of totalitarian Czechoslovakia. Filming as a participant rather than an outside observer, he created an intimate and compelling record of a culture shaped by artistic freedom, experimentation, and resistance.
Ságl’s presence in When Monsters Dream is no coincidence. A devoted admirer of Střešovická Kramle, he has described the group as a “revelation” and regularly attends their performances, which he says are now the only concerts he still goes to. His recent photographs of the band, shown upstairs in the gallery, extend the dialogue between past and present, documentary memory and living underground culture.
In When Monsters Dream, Ságl’s films and photographs resonate across time as fragments of audiovisual memory, carrying echoes of ritual, resistance, community, and artistic freedom.
Organized by the Czech Center New York with support from Lidice Art Collection. Special thanks to Artyčok.TV. Part of Offbeat Bohemia.
Jan Ságl (b. 1942, Humpolec) is a Czech photographer and filmmaker and one of the pioneers of Czech color photography. Closely connected to the Czech underground movement of the 1960s and 1970s, he documented artists, musicians, and cultural communities that developed outside official structures during the normalization era.
Ságl's photographs and films remain among the most important visual records of Czech underground culture and continue to offer a unique perspective on the relationship between artistic freedom, community, and social change. His work has appeared in international publications including National Geographic, Smithsonian Magazine, Zeit Magazin, and The New York Times, establishing him as one of the most distinctive voices in Czech photography of the last five decades.
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