But Koudelka is Koudelka, and he has more important fish to fry. When I look at the images in Chaos , I hear the music of Miles Davis, of darkness and beauty. One could argue that the subject of this work is desolation and emptiness. And certainly these are part of almost every image. But the depth and breadth of this work comes from a kind of self-imposed challenge, one which wonders how dark an image can be and still maintain beauty.
Jazz musicians face a similar problem when it's their turn to solo.
Or a bombed out building, walls riddled with bullet holes which, in a more predictable image by any other photographer, would be a statement about the horrors of war. But for Koudelka, it is here that the past and eternity come together in the same moment. This relationship is not forced. There is, of course, the occasional image grounded in a reality that is more familiar to the rest of us. A large statue of Lenin is tied onto a huge barge floating in a waterway under a dreary, gray sky.