The Slovak New Wave: The 80s

This publication presents eight Czech photographers of Slovak origin working in Prague in the 1970s and 80s: Tono Stano, Rudo Prekop, Vasil Stanko, Martin Strba, Miro Svolík, Kamil Varga, Peter Zupník and Jano Pavlík, known collectively as "the Slovak New Wave." The group--described variously as "photographers living in Bohemia" or "Czech photographers of Slovak origin"--constitutes a kind of shared cultural asset for both countries and an interesting phenomenon for anyone studying the links between Czech and Slovak photography. In the 1970s and 1980s, FAMU was the only higher-education establishment in Central Europe that taught photography, and it is perhaps surprising that the members of the Slovak New Wave remained uninfluenced by the Czech photographic tradition and were able to create their own unique identity at FAMU. Despite--or possibly because of--the fact that this was never an organized group with a declared statement of purpose, their relatively homogeneous visual language became one of the first examples of postmodernism in Czechoslovakia. This volume gives special emphasis to works that were never exhibited at the time, or were shown only on the fringe of the scene.