artists

Viktor Kopasz

 Viktor Kopasz creates diaries in which the photographs are digitally manipulated and/or colored with aniline dyes. His photographs are further reworked with the addition of text (notes in pencil and rubber-stamped slogans in Hungarian, English and Slovak), glued clippings, public transport tickets, and other miscellanea reminiscent of particular events or evocative of some feeling or thought. His diaries, substantial volumes in themselves, are then assembled into projects, some of which have been printed as "autobiographies" (Shadow play, In the Jungle, Kertelö). In our modern world we have become accustomed to straightforward, easily deciphered information, and the complexity and sophistication of a Kopasz diary seems out of place. Despite this, the slightly melancholic atmosphere and clouded, unreal colors which pervade Kopasz's work belong to an aesthetic that embraces central Europe and that harks back to Franz Kafka: although Kopasz differs from Kafka in that Prague herself has not rejected him eventhough the sense of alienation remains. This aesthetic is reflected in the subject matter of the diaries themselves, which are often records of journeys and sojourns in the artist's home in eastern Slovakia, where the river Latorica lies at the heart of a uniquely poetic, almost surrealistic landscape. The photographs, or more precisely spreads of photographic images, in the diaries work on two main, sometimes intermingled levels. At first one sees Kopasz's interest in his surroundings, his friends and family and in everything connected with these, but beyond this is the artist's highly subjective view of the world about him. As one looks at his work, it is this world which slowly starts to dominate: each spread is filled with a remarkable visual testament to this personal vision in which his photographs - through coloration, the most subtle digital manipulation and tracing-paper overlays - acquire the visual qualities of graphics. He connects the traditions of Czech and Slovak creative arts; in his work we can feel echoes of the surrealism that found a distinctive form in Central Europe. The single unifying component of Kopasz's work is time, which is key to the very concept of diary recording: recorded events are always past, a memory - sometimes clear, sometimes clouded but always alluded to whether by subject, message or even a blank page. The diary also gives a distance to events once lived, a space to think and a way to immerse oneself in the substance of the surrounding world.

Helena Musilova

Viktor Kopasz was born in 1973 in Kralovsky Chlmec, Slovakia. He lives and works in Prague where he teaches photography at the Middle School of Graphic Design and at The Film Academy (FAMU). He studied at the School of Applied Arts in Kosice, Slovakia and then from 1992-97 at the Film Academy (FAMU), Prague (department of photography) followed by a year at Middlesex University in London. Viktor has been recognized as a singular talent and, in addition to many solo shows in Central Europe, he has also been included in a number of group shows showcasing the most outstanding names in contemporary photography from the region.