Every November, the Bratislava Month of Photography presents exhibitions that reflect current events in the world and showcase the values of photography. This year, the Slovak capital will once again host a number of exhibitions, mainly by Slovak and Central European artists. Let’s take a look at three of them!
Miloš Dohnány: In the City
Miloš Dohnány (1904-1944) was one of the most important artists of modern Slovak photography between the two world wars. Dohnány was strongly influenced by the avant-garde approach, he met the renowned Czech photographer Jaromír Funk in the early 1930s and became familiar with the views and work of László Moholy-Nagy, which strengthened his interest in formal experimentation. His material and object studies, compositions, and still lifes form the most significant part of his oeuvre, but the exhibition In the City also includes his pictures of Bratislava from the 1930s and 1940s. Just like the objects in his studio, he captured the urban environment and modern buildings through dynamic compositions, with slanted horizons and diagonals, from above and below.
Juraj Mravec: War in Ukraine
Slovak photographer Juraj Mravec (b. 1987) photographed the Euromaidan demonstrations in Kyiv in January 2014, then the Donetsk and Luhansk regions between 2015 and 2017, and in 2015 he made the film Peace to You All, featuring ordinary people, soldiers, and veterans living in Eastern Ukraine. At the time, he was still able to access both sides, and he even interviewed a miner who had been beaten by Ukrainian soldiers, because he was working for the Donetsk People’s Republic. He has been photographing the war in Ukraine since 24 February 2022, spending a total of two months in the country until July, and this time he clearly took a stand. “I can’t be neutral, can I? If your head is in the right place, you have to admit that this was Russian aggression.” He admits to having chosen the side where there is democracy. Since the shock of last February, many people are probably tired of following the events and photos of the Russo-Ukrainian war. But Mravec’s images evoke the initial effects of the Russian aggression with an elemental force, the sight of bombed-out apartment blocks, burnt-out cars, desperate old people and children, refugees, and underground shelters. On the dirty windscreen of an upside-down car on a destroyed bridge in Irpin, near Kyiv, someone wrote: Слава Україні!
Gian Butturini: Coming Up Against Injustice
Italian photographer Gian Butturini (1935-2006) fought against poverty, inequality, and oppression with his photos since the 1960s. He photographed people living on the margins of society, people who suffered work accidents, revolutions, and conflicts. His exhibition at the Bratislava Month of Photography focuses on two series: London from 1969 and From Ireland after Londonberry from 1972. In London, Butturini photographed mainly hippies, young people sitting and smoking on the streets, drug addicts, immigrants, and the homeless, and published them in an album in a unique way. He coupled up pictures, cut and cropped the images, made them grainy and contrasty, and then added captions. Legendary British photographer Martin Parr liked it so much that he republished it in 2017 with his own foreword. The photos for the 1972 album were taken a week after the tragic event known as Bloody Sunday. Barricades, barbed wire, graffiti, and armed soldiers remind us of the massacre in the ominous neighborhood; Butturini’s focus was on the innocent victims, such as children, even in his politically sensitive series.
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Cover photo: Miloš Dohnány
Sources: www.mesiacfotografie.sk | citylife.sk | japantimes.co.jp | internimagazine.com