Touch

For us, Miro Švolík is not only an extraordinary and inimitable artist who works with photography in an inventive and original way, using it as an integral graphic element of his timeless statements and philosophical reflections, presented before an ever-surprised viewer. His almost inexhaustible creative energy continues to be recognised as a wholly original and inimitable force within the world of photography.

Through his work, Švolík creates an entirely new kind of aesthetic – distinctive and deeply rooted in his personality. He has been described as a poet or storyteller, yet his mature works reveal not only profound reflections, but also humour, exploration, irony, and a sense of perspective. Nor can one overlook his great courage in creating entirely unexpected and innovative themes. Initially taken aback, the viewer encounters Švolík’s work in a very different way: it demands a different kind of thinking from that required by other forms of modern photography, and gradually calls on the viewer to learn the artist’s own visual language.

Švolík belongs to the great new wave of modern Slovak photography that emerged in the second half of the twentieth century, and is among those artists who, together with his Slovak colleagues, significantly influenced the development of Czechoslovak photography. After graduating from FAMU in Prague, he devoted himself to independent artistic work and became a distinctive and inimitable figure on the Czechoslovak art scene – a position he has maintained to this day. His work, in which photography serves as a building block for his artistic statements, gradually attracted international attention, as demonstrated not only by the number of exhibitions he has held abroad, but also by his other activities, particularly in the field of education. It is also worth mentioning, in passing, the painstaking process involved in creating his works, especially before the advent of digital and computer-based technologies.

This exhibition presents a representative cross-section of important periods in Švolík’s mature work.

Josef Vomáčka, independent writer and cultural commentator, curator and exhibition organiser, urban theory scholar, and film critic