Half

Half-play, half-life, because
I truly do it, indeed!

Interview with MiroŠvolík

by Lucia Lendelová

L.L.: Hello, I am Lucia. What shall we talk about?

M.Š.: About humdrum things. I don’t like to talk about my photographs.

L.L. You are a Slovak photographer living and working in the Czech Republic. In the opening section of your monograph relating to photographic critics, Václav Macek writes: "…their knowledge of Slovak culture is minimal and therefore, it is but natural that they should be incapable to discover something that is at the core ofŠvolík’s work: his experience with Slovak culture and tradition of which he forms a permanent part…" How did you succeed in getting even with the diversity of these two cultural environments? Where do you really belong?

M.Š.: I have now been living 18 years in Prague. Here I started to study at the FAMU in 1981 - at the time the only college of photography in Czecho-Slovakia. At the beginning I was absolutely fascinated by Prague. Now, strolling through the streets, I do not see it at all any more. I live in my settings. It’s all the same to me where it happens to be.

L.L.: Your studio where we are now sitting is at Vihohrady in Prague . At one time it belonged to a Czech lady photographer of great fame Emilia Medková. Some pieces of her furniture have remained after her. Is this place some sort of a genius loci to you because of it?

M.Š.: The photographer’s daughter has let me this studio for five years. I feel fine here. I consider this concurrence of fates to be a good omen.

L.L.: We are talking of Prague. However, your work, particularly that of recent years, has had a considerable response also abroad…

M.Š.: Recently I had an exhibition in Opava, but also in Galilee, Madrid, New York… I took part in several workshops in Great Britain, Denmark, in the Czech Republic and also in Slovakia. My workshop at the Poprad Photo School was called "Photo Workshop without Topic, Genre and Orientation". Thanks to these undertakings I met many fine people. For me, therein probably lies their greatest meaning.

L.L.: When I compare your earlier work, "typicallyŠvolikian" with what I see on the table, I feel a marked shift in your interpretation of "man". From man simulating a symbol, you pass on to the part, shape (even sign) representing man. The theatre is getting lost. Only torsos, details, silhouttes remain. Manipulation of people in front of the camera has given way to manipulation of slides and ready photographs. Ultimately, that amounts to something like portraying.

M.Š.: Manipulation has been caused by technique, otherwise I rather felt like a stage-manager, not a manipulator. Occasionally, however, I really lacked spontaneity at work. All of a sudden I came to resent that I did not know what my photographic subjects looked like. I wished to react to a concrete person, to come into people’s close photographic proximity. And thus I came to be preoccupied with direct, immediate photography. That involved a question of communication.

L.L.: Your cycles go from the narrative, the serial and sequences, to relatively independent photographic pictures. Have you the feeling that you have said everything"?

M.Š.: Not at all. I have ceased with it (even though not entirely) because my work within the framework of the episodes was not very photographic, proved to be rather creative - searching for premises, hunting for requisites, water painting on footpaths, stage-setting of people. As all this was done without any computer, the making of such a photo demanded enormous efforts - a one-sided matter. And I am an all-rounder.

L.L.: Have you really never used a computer in your work?

M.Š.: No, it would require mastering a new medium and that takes time. Photos would ensue rather quickly on a computer and I would miss that process of leisurely handling the photograph from beginning to end. I like photography to be totally dependent on technique. On a very refined one, occasionally I even have the impression of its being over-refined.

L.L.: Then you evidently are one of those who love the sourish smell of the dark-room?

M.Š.: Yes, I spend much time in there, although I explicitly find pleasure in it occasionally only and this when I enlarge a newly-taken picture for the first time. When I have to enlarge photographs repeatedly because of some exhibition, then I do the job as if I had to go to work somewhere. I suffer, but I go on working.

L.L.: From your more recent photographs (From Kozárovce, Back to Nature), where you intermingle parts of human and animal bodies with pictures of landscapes, living and nonliving nature, I sense some sort of a new connec-tion, a switch-over, man’s identification with nature in strange anthropomorphic wholes (rocks with hands, or petrified men?). From stage-setting, you have passed on to discovering and commenting. In your most recent cy-cle which is being introduced together with the present interview, you complete black silhouettes of heads with parts of the body that do not belong there and yet somehow they do. In what manner of ways do you create your present photographs?

M.Š.: This is related to the chaotic state of my thoughts, occasionally the image of some photo - already completed or just outlined - appears among them. Then I observe it for a few days from various angles and try to save time in order to be able to start working on it. I have repeatedly allowed myself to be inspired by my own photographs. Now I am looking for a theme that would be topical in some five-six years.

L.L.: Are you always satisfied with the outcome?

M.Š.: The result is of great importance, but solely in the case where it is built on sincerity of work. The latter may reside in drudgery, or in a knowledge of the problem. It may often happen that no result appears despite the best of efforts. Yet this is of no consequence to me, for what is chiefly at stake here is that sincerity.

L.L.: Alongside the "folders" referred to, I also see classical portraits and nudes. I had no idea you moved in these domains, too. I am beginning to find you more and more interesting. Tell me why and where you are constantly shifting?

M.Š.: I simply feel the need to experiment. The need always to do something new. The primeval essence always appears as a picture and then I go on photographing further, trying, adding and pondering. Those notions always lead me somewhere. I do what comes into my mind. I feel it as freedom. Thus far I have not satisfied myself. I do not wish to lock myself up in a shell. In this way, I feel opened towards myself. Behind each photo on view, there are searchings. In my view, it is of importance to seek one’s own possibilities.

L.L.: For quite a time now, I have been interested in the phenomenon of chance in photography. Many photographers make use of the uncalled-for, or the unexpected instant in their work. I find your photographs to be thought-out down to the last detail. What place recurs to chance within the framework of your "search of opportunities"?

M.Š.: The form of photography of which you speak requires a certain type of man. Chance as an outcome fails to satisfy me. However, it does, of course, occasionally appear also in my work, as it ultimately does in human life generally. For instance, as we were once setting the stage for some human picture on an extensive meadow, a gang of hooligans drove in on motorbikes and began to spoil it all - so I photographed them. And the result was quite interesting. As a matter of fact, all the ideas come in by chance. And I consider as chance the fact that I have become a photographer. I had never meant to pursue photography, I enrolled at the Secondary School of Applied Arts to study graphics. However, fifty people applied there and the remaining 3O went in for the further 5 specialities. After the entrance examination, they began to convince us to apply somewhere else. We were told that once a speciality became filled up, we would have fewer opportunities. So I quickly went in for photography. A moment later Tóno Stano likewise ran there in a mad hurry. Just by chance. Things are like that. You go in for something, the decision is taken, you have several alternatives. You decide and go on. Like an infinitely branching tree.

L.L. Although you do not like to speak about your photos, we have nonetheless spoken of them. Let us then return to the "humdrum run". Occasionally I have the feeling concerning you and some of your pictures that it all is some sort of a "play about you", only I do not know to what extent it is au-thentic and truthful. I find it difficult to determine where it is you play and where it is you live. (I have in mind your cycles My Known Road Into the Unknown, Who Am I, Whence Do I Come, What Am I Doing, Where Am I Going, My Life as Man.)

M.Š.: All my problems - sequences with added commentaries are fiction, just the date of birth is correct. It is some sort of a half-play. But also half-life. Because I truly do it all indeed!•

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