Under the austere title “Totem,” Ján Triaška presents an artistically articulated stance on the construction of national identity and collective memory.
Exercising his creative license, he interprets Kriváň—a peak deeply embedded in Slovak cultural consciousness—in a Freudian manner, as a kind of tribal totem. It functions as a familial protective deity and a symbolic anchor for Slovaks tied to a specific territory.
Through this artistic reinterpretation of fundamental symbols of “Slovakness,” Triaška reveals their overuse in political propaganda games, where the term “national” is invoked for rhetorical effect and strategically flattened. As in his previous projects addressing the tensions and contradictions of contemporary society, the artist employs montage, the juxtaposition of historical and present-day contrasts, and an unconventional arrangement of images within a spatial installation.
In doing so, he tests the relevance of a symbolic language that was once grounded in sincere revolutionary ideals—ideals that sought to shape national awareness of the present and the future. Over time, however, these symbols have become hollowed out by historical events. With a playfully ironic detachment, Triaška deconstructs signs of ethnic authenticity that stem from nostalgically inherited attributes of national history.
The multiplied symbol of Kriváň transforms into a pop-art-styled media cliché. Ľudovít Benka’s noble Guardians become extinguished shadows among classical ruins, and the ivy that once embraced them withers and dries. Under the weight of modern consumerism and political spectacle, the original ideals of past revolutionary awakenings also begin to fade.
Triaška’s artistic imagination suggests that unless we can resist the arsenal of entrenched visual clichés and political kitsch—and unless we actively engage with myth and memory—the construction of our national consciousness will cease to be a dialogue between a dynamically evolving present and a search for the past. Instead, it risks collapsing into a passive gaze into the abyss.
