Previously unpublished photos of Václav Havel can now be seen at the European Parliament in Brussels. Their author is Jerry Gehry, a Czech photographer who lives in Belgium. In the 1990s, he worked as a personal photographer for the first Czech president. Roberta Mitsulaova, President of the European Parliament, inaugurated the extraordinary exhibition
We live in difficult times, said the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Mitsulaova, at the opening of the exhibition. She emphasized that Václav Havel viewed politics as a service to the people, and that lawmakers should be guided by this when solving problems such as price hikes and the energy crisis. I also remembered his words about Europe as a mission that the Czech Republic copied into the presidential motto.
The memory of Václav Havel is being commemorated at the European Parliament in Brussels with a new temporary exhibition of his portraits. Hear more in Victor Dashko’s report
The gallery is located near the main meeting room. About two dozen images can be seen on the paintings in the lobby, including iconic ones, such as Václav Havel, Bohumil Hrabal and Bill Clinton sitting next to each other over pints at the U zlatého tigre bar in Prague and laughing.
Jiří Jírů describes his favorite photo: “It’s not a handshake, but something is going on there, there are three of them, Hrabal is holding a beer coaster and they have great expressions.”
As one of Havel’s personal photographers, Jerry Jerry has taken thousands of photos. He also chose many of them that he had not shown before. On one of them, for example, children are waiting in line in the presidential limousine to sign a monument, and on another he is drinking burritos. On which key choose images for the gallery?
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“That there is an atmosphere, that it is not a static picture, that something is happening there. I wanted people to think of every picture. For example, a picture of Václav Klaus with Václav Havel in Brussels and you can see in their eyes how unsympathetic they are. Every picture has a story We can move from one image to another.
The exhibition was presented to the European Parliament by MEP Tomáš Zdechovský of KDU-SL.
“Jiří Jír has a number of photos that no one knows about that I thought spoke volumes about the character of Václav Havel, who was very complex. I think his legacy will be stronger in the future and it is important to find a bridge between him, a man of the past, and his legacy who is still alive in the present “.
The exhibition can only be seen for a few days, but the name Václav Havel is permanently present in the European Parliament. Already because one of the buildings in the Strasbourg headquarters of this institution was named in his honor.
