Lecture on the Exhibition Andrej Pešta – Baro frajeris

Our Roma Photography

Photographing “Gypsies” in socialist Czechoslovakia formed a distinctive artistic genre. Journeys into settlements in Slovakia, within their closed-off world, were made almost as if in search of the exotic. And although every (mostly male) photographer had his own authorial approach, the photographs bore striking typological similarities: the adolescent “beautiful Gypsy girl,” children and old women smoking indulgently on the doorstep, tattooed musculature, the beautiful child gazing brazenly into the camera, collective mourning and lamentation... Let us attempt to look at these visual models of portraying our “Others”—the Roma—through today’s critical eyes, with a postcolonial perspective, and in doing so, also learn something about ourselves and the biases in our own vision.

Andrej Pešta (1921–2009) was an important Roma figure—an amateur photographer, writer, and visual artist. In the 1960s, he actively participated in the ethno-emancipatory movement connected to the Union of Gypsies-Roma, which he also documented through his photography. His work provides an authentic perspective on Roma life during socialism—capturing everyday life, traditions, and culture from the point of view of a member of the community.

The exhibition Andrej Pešta – Baro frajeris is part of this year’s Roma culture festival Khamoro.

Mgr. Petra Hanáková, PhD. is an art historian and theorist, film historian, and curator of the modern and contemporary art collection at the Slovak National Gallery (SNG) in Bratislava. In her research, she focuses on 20th-century visual and film culture and has contributed to numerous significant exhibition projects as well as scholarly publications.

The exhibition will run until September 18th!

Fotograf Zone Gallery