Černý trojúhelník, Podkrušnohoří

"The Black Triangle" is a photographic report in black and white on the Podkrusnohorí Region - the western tip of the infamous Black Triangle's foothills of the Ore Mountains, located between Germany and the Czech Republic. It is one of Europe's worst devastated territories, but it is also a region that shaped the origin and future development of the Czech state.

Coal mining, the first record of which dates back to 1403, has been the region's enormous wealth as well as its curse. The industrial revolution facilitated an unprecedented upsurge of the living standards, but at the cost of irreversible changes in nature. 'Man is not an omniscient master of the planet who can get away with doing whatever he likes and whatever may suit him at the moment'. That introductory quotation of Václav Havel is illustrated by Josef Koudelka's photographs of the land dominated by head frames, waste heaps, factory stacks and dried-up lakes.