GROTESK
The Common Language of Eastern Europe
June 12–22, 2025
Fotofestiwal (Łódź, Poland)
August 20–24, 2025
Arcus Temporum Art Festival (Pannonhalma, Hungary)
October 3–12, 2025
Fotograf Festival (Prague, Czech Republic)
November 7–21, 2025
OFF Bratislava (Bratislava, Slovakia)
“One does not have to believe everything is true, one only has to believe it is necessary.” – Franz Kafka
Eastern Europe has been a geopolitical buffer zone for centuries, and as a result the people who live here have had to learn to communicate by reading between the lines and laughing at their own impossible situations, which has given rise to an unmistakably unique way of expression, the Eastern European grotesque. Rather than focusing on the differences between the many peoples across the region, and on the East–West divide that has been left forgotten behind from the Cold War and is becoming less and less relevant with globalization, the GROTESK photo project is drawing attention to what connects us, our common values, by showing the best absurd photographs from Eastern Europe, through this publication and exhibitions in Czechia, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary in 2025!
The region once known as the Eastern Bloc, from the Baltic region to the Balkans, has for centuries been a buffer zone between East and West on the edge of Europe. Eastern Europe is a land in between: pagan and Christian, Christian and Muslim and Catholic and Orthodox – as Polish historian Jacob Mikanowski summarizes in his book Goodbye, Eastern Europe. Due to Tatar, Turkish, Austrian, German, and later American and Russian influence, borders were constantly shifting, and even in the 20th century one did not have to move to become a citizen of four countries in just a few decades. In addition to external forces, there was no shortage of tensions among neighbors. Russia–Ukraine war has brought all this back into sharper focus.
This often miserable fate and, above all, almost half a century of Soviet influence shaped the common reflexes that still live on today and bind together the minds of the diverse and multilingual peoples living in this region: self-reliance in the face of a distant oppressive power, the ability to read between the lines and a bittersweet humor that shines a mirror on your own impossible situation, in other words, the unmistakable Eastern European grotesque.
Grotesque is indeed a lingua franca, the common language of Eastern Europe, a widely used artistic tool and style throughout the region for long. As Jacob Mikanowski puts it “prolonged acquaintance with history at its most extreme has given us an extraordinary fluency in the absurd”. Prominent artists such as Franz Kafka, István Örkény, Jaroslav Hašek, Bohumil Hrabal or Krzysztof Kieślowski have all engaged grotesque as a means of expression. Qualities such as nonsense, absurd, tragicomic, bizarre or odd pop-up in their work all the time, all of which capture the coping strategies of the inhabitants of a region with a constantly very turbulent atmosphere. Thus, they speak from our souls.
In the last 30 years, since the fall of socialism, everyone has been trying to get rid of the Eastern European label. But why should we throw away this undoubtedly existing and widely used categorization, instead of filling it with new content? After all, the Warsaw Pact, signed 70 years ago, has been replaced by the 40-year-old Schengen Agreement but we all remained where we were. Our goal is to nuance the meaning of „Eastern European identity”, so that people can focus not on the negative connotation shaped from a predominantly Western perspective along the logic of the Cold War, but on the much more humane common denominator, concentrating on the obvious similarities, like the affinity for grotesque! Let’s let go of the stigma attached to us and fill the term Eastern European with new, more endearing and more empathic meaning!
István Virágvölgyi
Curator
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CREDITS
Photographers:
HUNGARY: Csilla Klenyánszki, Hórusz Archive (Sándor Kardos) Éva Szombat, László Török, Zsuzsi Ujj
CZECHIA: Oskar Helcel, Dita Pepe, Iren Stehli
SLOVAKIA: Andrej Balco, Martin Kollár, Zuzana Pustaiová, Viktor Šelesták
POLAND: Zbigniew Libera, Natalia LL, Rafał Milach, Agnieszka Sejud
ROMANIA: Mihai Barabancea, Tamás Hajdu
UKRAINE: Alexander Chekmenev, Boris Mikhailov
Concept: István Virágvölgyi, Capa Center (Budapest, Hungary)
Curators: Sára Jeleňová, OFF Bratislava (Bratislava, Slovakia), Světlana Malina, Fotograf Zone (Prague, Czech Republic); Marta Szymańska, Fotofestiwal (Łódź, Poland)
Graphic design: Nóra Szücs (Linz, Austria)
Project coordinator: Andrea Andrea Szűcs, Summa Artium (Budapest, Hungary)
Printing: EPC (Budaörs, Hungary)
GROTESK project is realized in the collaboration of Summa Artium (Budapest, Hungary), Fotofestiwal (Łódź, Poland), Fotograf Zone (Prague, Czech Republic) and OFF Bratislava (Bratislava, Slovakia).
The project is co-financed by the governments of Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia through Visegrad Grants from the International Visegrad Fund. The mission of the fund is to advance ideas for sustainable regional cooperation in Central Europe.
https://www.summa-artium.hu/grotesque.eastern.europe
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