______2004-2006 FROM DUST AND ASCHES

The sixtieth anniversary of the end of World War II and the tenth anniversary of the end of the war in the Balkans brought the cycle From Dust and Ashes, stimulated by literary texts, especially the authentic souvenirs of Primo Levi, prisoner of Nazi concentration camps, and the diaries of Rudolf Höss, commander of the concentration camp Auschwitz. Some forty original prints show entire figures or details of suffering victims, rapidly edited as though in a short documentary. The content of the prints is emphasized by the texts-quotations shown in negative as a key or message for the viewer. The quotations recall the horrifying reality of a monstruous system of torturers and victims, the only possibility being hope, faith and the innermost core of one’s ego. This catharsis is highlighted in the second part of the cycle, which draws upon the diaries of the imprisoned artists Emil Filla and Josef Čapek. Jiří Sozanský once more evokes, most emphatically and with great mastery, the climate of disruption and slaughter, the search for hope in despair, as a warning memento for our global civilization.