Lost Time?

A powerful and moving exhibit, "Lost Time? Slovakia 1969-1989 in Documentary Photography," is on display at the Slovak National Gallery in Bratislava. November is a special time here. Communism fell in November 1989. Since 1991, Bratislava has sponsored a "month of photography" in November at galleries around the city to promote the work of Slovak photographers, some of whom have gone on to international recognition.

Here is the promotional banner for the exhibit above the entrance to the gallery, with three of the many photographs on display.

That 20-year period was the darkest in the 40-plus years of Communist totalitarian rule in what was then Czechoslovakia. The "Prague spring" of 1968 had been crushed by Soviet tanks rolling in across the country, and they didn't leave until two decades later with the nonviolent fall of Communism behind the "Iron Curtain" in the Soviet satellite states. The Communists perversely referred to those two decades as "normalization." The curators for this exhibit scoured Slovakia for two years looking for images taken by Slovak photographers, many amateurs. Reportedly, professional artists shunned by the regime also found an outlet in photography; their work now can be seen for the subtle critique they dared to make at the time.

It is an extraordinary exhibit, with images both chilling and touching about what life was like for ordinary people in that era. It was a time of hardship, propaganda, and repression. I was especially fascinated by scenes of landmarks and streets I have seen in better times this fall. Here is a billboard of Communist leaders in the ground below the Bratislava Castle (by photographer Pavol Breier, 1978).

I have seen the Communist-built expressway that cuts through Old Town. Here are shots by photographer Rudolf Lendel in 1970 of the destruction of the old Jewish Community in order to build it. In the top image, St. Michael's Cathedral is in the center, with the medieval wall to the left.

The final section of the exhibit is called "The Iron Curtain Opens." Here are shots by Ondrej Simek in 1989 of the electrified fences that kept people from escaping for all those years.

This one shows celebrants on the banks of the Danube River, that had been heavily guarded by the Communists to prevent escape to Austria and the West.





I bought the catalog for this extraordinary show, which includes every image in the exhibit and extensive discussion in both Slovak and English. It cost 630 SKK (about $25), more in line with what I would expect to pay at a U.S. museum for a comparable catalog, but it is well worth it. Here is a link to the Gallery's information page (in English) about this exhibit: http://www.sng.sk/?id=1&nid=2689&loc=1&lang=1

NOTE: Click on any image in this blog to see it full-size.