ĽUBO STACHO. Slovakia - mysterious and spiritual country
PROJECT SLOVAKIA mysterious and spiritual country
Slovakia is a country on the border of the Eastern /Byzantine/ and Western Judeo-Christian Europe. Right in this area blends the western pragmatism with the eastern spirituality and mystics. The Slovak Republic is already a member of the European Union but the specifics of the region still stay. Europe is a mosaic of such regions and because of these specifics this continent is beautiful and unique. The cultural, historical and intellectual background of this continent on our planet is not repeatable. Only after visiting the USA I realised that I am proud to be European. Dialogue among nations, ethnics and religions requests amazing patience and empathy. Mutual understanding can happen only when we will respect differences which make us different from each other. For a western pragmatic person it is certainly very difficult to understand the big-hearted Russian nature, which is filled with intuitive belief into future without any material security.
Communism in the Eastern part of Europe after the Holocaust tabooed the Jewish culture which now in this area only reawakens and looks for its identity. The Romany ethnic “thinking” more with its heart than with its brain has in this part of Europe also big social problems. I am persuaded that the understandable language of photographic diptychs can help mutual understanding much more than anything else. Photographs were always supranational communication tools without any language barriers.
In my project I would like to make an artistic statement about this situation using the modern language of the photographic medium. I am involved with the problems of visual language already for many years, which can without words negotiate information and artistic messages. For a long time I surveyed possibilities of photographic diptychs /connecting two photographs into a new meaning/ and I realised this connection creates a new quality. I made the first researches in the 80ties of the 20th century in the connection with capturing of time changes on a pair of photographs. At that time my creation was named to be a conceptual document by Dr. Antonín Dufek from the Moravian Gallery in Brno. Later I started to connect the photographs on the base of content or formal analogy or on the base of a metaphor of meanings of individual pictures /see addition – book 3 essays about photographs by Ľ . Stacho/. The last 5 years I have been working on a research of photographic diptychs which have more or less documentary character. Each photograph in the diptych carries its message but at the same time with connecting of two photographs a new metaphoric message is created. This “silent tension” can be felt somewhere over the picture where the energies of both photographs blend.
In the connection of two photographs I am interested in the contradictions but also likenesses in all forms which can be expressed visually. As an example I will introduce at least a couple of themes which I would like to capture on photographs: richness and poorness, consumerism and spirituality, meditation and stress, belief and pragmatism, European traditions and other influences /for example American/, coexistence of different religions and fundamentalism among religions, coexistence of various ethnics, fine art and contemporary life etc.
Slovakia is a country on the border of the Eastern /Byzantine/ and Western Judeo-Christian Europe. Right in this area blends the western pragmatism with the eastern spirituality and mystics. The Slovak Republic is already a member of the European Union but the specifics of the region still stay. Europe is a mosaic of such regions and because of these specifics this continent is beautiful and unique. The cultural, historical and intellectual background of this continent on our planet is not repeatable. Only after visiting the USA I realised that I am proud to be European. Dialogue among nations, ethnics and religions requests amazing patience and empathy. Mutual understanding can happen only when we will respect differences which make us different from each other. For a western pragmatic person it is certainly very difficult to understand the big-hearted Russian nature, which is filled with intuitive belief into future without any material security.
Communism in the Eastern part of Europe after the Holocaust tabooed the Jewish culture which now in this area only reawakens and looks for its identity. The Romany ethnic “thinking” more with its heart than with its brain has in this part of Europe also big social problems. I am persuaded that the understandable language of photographic diptychs can help mutual understanding much more than anything else. Photographs were always supranational communication tools without any language barriers.
In my project I would like to make an artistic statement about this situation using the modern language of the photographic medium. I am involved with the problems of visual language already for many years, which can without words negotiate information and artistic messages. For a long time I surveyed possibilities of photographic diptychs /connecting two photographs into a new meaning/ and I realised this connection creates a new quality. I made the first researches in the 80ties of the 20th century in the connection with capturing of time changes on a pair of photographs. At that time my creation was named to be a conceptual document by Dr. Antonín Dufek from the Moravian Gallery in Brno. Later I started to connect the photographs on the base of content or formal analogy or on the base of a metaphor of meanings of individual pictures /see addition – book 3 essays about photographs by Ľ . Stacho/. The last 5 years I have been working on a research of photographic diptychs which have more or less documentary character. Each photograph in the diptych carries its message but at the same time with connecting of two photographs a new metaphoric message is created. This “silent tension” can be felt somewhere over the picture where the energies of both photographs blend.
In the connection of two photographs I am interested in the contradictions but also likenesses in all forms which can be expressed visually. As an example I will introduce at least a couple of themes which I would like to capture on photographs: richness and poorness, consumerism and spirituality, meditation and stress, belief and pragmatism, European traditions and other influences /for example American/, coexistence of different religions and fundamentalism among religions, coexistence of various ethnics, fine art and contemporary life etc.
Ľubo Stacho – e-mail: [email protected]
Ľ ubo Stacho (1953) established in the year 1990 at the Academy of Fine Arts the study of photography where until today he leads the Atelier of Photography and Interdisciplinary Enjambments.
Except creative work in the area of photography the author makes enjambments into other media /video, installations, drawing, painting and others/, publishes theoretical articles, profiles and reviews of exhibitions, takes part in organising of exhibitions, creative workshops and summer schools of photography.
Except creative work in the area of photography the author makes enjambments into other media /video, installations, drawing, painting and others/, publishes theoretical articles, profiles and reviews of exhibitions, takes part in organising of exhibitions, creative workshops and summer schools of photography.