Poster / Evžen Sobek, Come and Take It, 2025Evžen Sobek, Come and Take It, 2025

Evžen Sobek (*1967) belongs to the generation of photographers who were tasked with guiding their society through the changes that came at the turn of the century with the fall of communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe. Perhaps this is also the reason why his photographs, behind their visual harmony, almost always conceal a certain measure of wonder and criticality, leading the viewer to reflect on the world they live in.

In the 1990s, photographers from countries in the former Eastern Bloc set out beyond the Iron Curtain to discover that on both sides there were essentially the same people, living very similar stories. Sobek, however, does not seem to have been particularly affected by this generally shared humanist stance. And if he was, it did not prevent him from seeking those specific moments in which differences manifest themselves – differences that testify to the fact that human communities as well as individuals are products of autonomous development, which imprints certain specific traits on them. In Sobek’s portfolio we find several strong series in which he responds to the paradoxes and absurdities of the social atmosphere of Czechoslovakia in the second half of the twentieth century, and the ways it transformed under new conditions. They are a kind of free reflection on the essence of our national identity, which is quite often very merciless.

The series of photographs he created during his recent journey through American Texas is, in its method and mode of seeing, fairly close to these reflections. With the essential difference that, as time has gone by, the author has retreated from the tendency to heighten expressivity through caricature, a strategy popular among artists of his generation when dealing with themes related to domestic circumstances. Sobek is by no means a naive admirer of foreign lands who allows himself to be carried away by their exotic charm. He visits Texas and the United States regularly. In relation to the chosen theme, he is therefore more of an anthropologist who perceives the environment around him through its typical rituals and symbols, or perhaps only through their residues, which speak to us in a language more easily understood by the eyes than by the ears.

In the light of the current geopolitical situation, we are beginning to speak increasingly about the end of globalization. It is therefore possible that the photographs of Evžen Sobek and his generation, for whom its manifestations were a driving force of artistic creation, may in the future serve as a reminder of a time when it was at the centre of attention.

Jiří Pátek

“Come and Take It” is a slogan from Texas history that originated in 1835 at the Battle of Gonzales, when Texian settlers refused to return a cannon to Mexican forces and raised a flag daring them to seize it. It became a lasting symbol of Texan independence and resistance. Today, it is still widely used in U.S. gun rights culture, the military, and politics as a declaration of defiance and personal freedom.