Zdeněk Smieško – To see. To feel. Record
The exhibition project monographically presents the photographer and teacher Zdeněk Smiešek and represents a cross-section of his lifelong work. The first independent and at the same time retrospective exhibition focuses exclusively on Zdeněk Smiešek's own work. The public will be offered a revelatory comprehensive view of his vision of the world through the lens of a camera between 1970 and 2005. The portraits, landscapes, reportage and free photographs presented at the exhibition in the author's selection are based on the photographer's observation of the real, unmanipulated world from his immediate surroundings, when things, persons, events, landscapes speak for themselves through the cutout of the photographer's view. The exhibition is complemented by the author's textual comments on individual sections and photographs in order to support authentic statements and the world of thought of the photographer who sees, feels and records. Viewers will be introduced to the subjects and motivations of photographic creation as the photographer's inner process path to photographs.
The exhibition was created as a reaction to the successful exhibition of the underground and later exiled graphic artist and mail-artist Igor Ďurišin, which the Východoslovenská galeria prepared in 2023, while Igor Ďurišin's life was photographically documented by his friend and colleague Zdeněk Smieško. During the preparation of the Ďurišina exhibition, the idea arose to present the photographic work of Zdeněk Smiešek, who lived in seclusion for many years, devoted to his photographic talent and pedagogic mission.
Smieško belonged to the first generation of photographers who started working professionally in Košice and was also at the birth of the photography department of Košice "Šupka". During his decades of work there, he raised generations of excellent photographers, without him, for example, we cannot imagine the roots of the Slovak new wave of photography in the 80s. Thanks to the activities of Zdeněk Smiešek, today we have a detailed documentation of the life and work of important Košice artists, for example Juraj and Marie Bartusz, Jozef Kornúcik, Július Jakoby, the Blažov family and many others. From the point of view of exploring the cultural environment in the region, we as an institution consider it important to present the photographic work of Zdeněk Smiešek to the public, both in the regional context and also from the point of view of scientific research and documentation. We want to present Mr. Smiešek's rich work to new viewers but also to future generations of artists, researchers and art theorists.
The photographic archive of Zdeněk Smiešek contains thousands of negatives and photographs, which will be presented in the exhibition project in a narrow selection of the author, due to the possibilities of exhibition capacities. The installation consists of almost a hundred large-format black-and-white and sepia photographs, which are digitally processed and then printed on photographic paper.
Place : Východoslovak Gallery