Boris Németh

© Boris Németh

If you were to ask Boris Németh how many kilometres he had to travel to produce the twenty photographs for his exhibition –Slovakia – I’m -loving it, he would answer: more than 100 000 for sure. This is above all because the project’s first photographs date from the early 21st century, when Slovakia was in the process of dealing with a historic turning point – declaring the separation from the Czech Republic in 1993 – followed by the equally fundamental decision to join the European Union eleven years later. Its identity is up in the air. Who are we? Where do we belong? What is important to us?

Slovakia – I’m loving it is an ironic/sarcastic commentary on the euphoria caused by overwhelming capitalist consumerism after decades of state-imposed restraint or even poverty. Németh chooses the paradox as the key to understanding his theme. Aurel Hrabusicky describes Boris Németh’s method as a path, at the same time “clearly and emphatically” touching on uncertainty, the invisible, and the mysterious. By doing so he disregards geographic limitations. 

It makes no difference whether the images are from Bratislava or an almost anonymous remote village in Eastern Slovakia. It doesn’t matter either whether his photos were taken in an election year with one or the other political party winning. Neither does it matter whether this or that nuclear power plant was completed. In his images, the identity of Slovakia is formed by a mosaic of contradictions, but they all have one thing in common: vitality. It feels as if everything that Boris Németh discovers in Slovakia conceals the conviction that the end shall never come. This exploration of the depth of the Slovakian soul provides a kind of visual magic, a sort of wizardry drawing its power from ambiguity.

Németh does not have a clear answer to the question what Slovakia is like but nonetheless takes pleasure in holding up the magical photographic mirror to it. Németh’s magic stems from what Le Clézio, French winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, once called the “gift to hear the murmur of one’s blood in a quiet night”. It is both sensual and universal, overcoming personal, political as well as national boundaries. Németh’s compositions are not only careful observations, but above all he is a photographic trouble-maker. This is why his work is so fascinating, disturbing, disconcerting and beautiful all at the same time.

Curated by Václav Macek