Photography stops time and ordinary things transform themselves by escaping from reality, it is our imagination that models them, it is enough to give them an attentive look.
Peter Župník
Peter Župník was born in Levoča, Slovakia, in 1961. Trained at the Secondary School of Arts and Crafts in Košice, he studied artistic photography at the FAMU University in Prague. During his years in Prague, Peter Župník participated intensely in the Slovak New Wave movement, a group of young Slovak photographers gathered around Professor Jan Smok. He graduated in 1986 and became a freelance photographer in 1987. He left Prague in 1995 and settled in the Paris region. His career as a photographer then developed mainly between France, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.
His photographs are exhibited in galleries all over the world. His works are included in numerous public collections: Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Centre Georges Pompidou, Fond National d'Art Contemporain, Musée de l'Elysée in Lausanne and in other institutions and private collections.
Considered as the most poetic photographer of the Slovak artistic movement "New Wave", member of the MOST group ("the bridge"), Peter Župník proposes a creation where the real is articulated with the subjective. Through his choice of composition, his formats, his diptychs and above all by the finesse of his pastel interventions on the prints, Peter Župník reaches a surrealist dimension, sometimes dreamlike, always inhabited by fantastic visions, stemming from a collective imagination linked to myths.
Peter Župník lives and works in Issy les Moulineaux, in France
Read more2020 Paříž, věčná láska, Východočeská Galerie, Pardubice, Czech Republic
Anima, Galerie municipale, Levoča, Slovakia
2019 Kabinetky, Sabina Shuckert place, Slovakia
2018 From a Shattered Church, Litomysl, Czech Republic
Anima, Galerie M. A. Bazovsky, Trencin, Slovakia
2017 Pohlad/Looking, Musée de Spis, Levoča, Slovakia
Prague, mémoires nocturnes, Nikon Photo Gallery, Czech Republic
Petits tableaux de Chantilly, Ville de Chantilly, France
2015 Bratislava à Paris!, K.gallery, Slovakia
ART symposium, Mikulov, Czech Republic
The Best of Peter Zupnik, Galerie Baudelaire, Anvers, Netherlands
Animalia, Galerie Arcturus, Paris, France
2014 Day Dreams, Galerie ArtInBox, Prague, Czech Republic
2013 The Slovak new wave, Maison de la photographie, Prague, Czech Republic
2012 De l’infiniment près à l’infiniment loin, Peter Zupnik/Tim Hall, Galerie Arcturus, Paris, France
The Phantom of Eastern Europe, see+ artSpace/gallery, Beijing, China
2010 Simple Things, Nostress Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic
2008 Face à face Kalvar / Zupnik, Galerie Arcturus, Paris, France
2005 Personal exhibition, Maison de l’Europe, Paris, France
2004 Art Paris, galerie Arcturus, Carrousel du Louvre, Paris
Personal exhibition, Galerie Josef Sudek, Prague, Czech Republic
Photographie maximale, château de Prague, Prague, Czech Republic
2003 Photographie slovaque 1925-2000, Bibliothèque municipale, Prague, Czech Republic
Mémoires nocturnes, Czech Cultural Center, Paris
Réalités poétiques, Galerie Arcturus, Paris, France
Petites grandes choses, Museum Quartier, Vienne, Austria
Saison tchèque, Fontainebleau, France
2002 KunstRai, Galerie Rob van den Doel, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Petites grandes choses, travelling exhibition in Slovakia
Photographie slovaque 1925-2000, Slovakia National Gallery, Bratislava, Slovakia
2001 Collective exhibition, Galerie Le Pont Neuf, Paris, France
1999 Personal exhibition, Galerie 4, Cheb, Czech Republic
Mois de la photographie, Bratislava, Slovakia
1998 L’Art de la collection, Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland
Fotofest, Houston, USA
Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, USA
1997 Exposition personnelle, Galerie Le Pont Neuf, Paris, France
Halle rencontre Prague, Halle, Germany
1996 Nox, National Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic
Inszenierte Fotografie die Prager Fotoscene, Museum of photography, Braunschweig, Germany
1995 Génération 60, Photofusion, London, United Kingdom
1994 Trois regards », Vidéothèque de Paris, Paris, France
La Bretagne, French Institute of Prague, Czech Republic
1993 Rencontres photographiques de la Normandie, Rouen, France
Maison pragoise de la photographie, Prague, Czech Republic
1991 Photo biennale, Enschede, Netherlands
Parco Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1990 L’année de l’Est, Musée de l’Elysée , Lausanne, Switzerland
Fotofest, Houston, USA
Rencontres internationales de la photographie, Arles, France
1989 Czecoslovak Contemporary Photography, Amsterdam, Netherlands Photographie tchécoslovaque 1945-1989, Manes, Prague, Czech Republic
1988 Out of Eastern Europe, Private photography, travelling exhibition in different American cities (New York, San Francisco, Portland, Chicago), USA
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- Fonds National d'Art Contemporain, Paris, France
- Gernscheim Collections, Austin, USA
- European House of Photography, Paris
- Meda Mládková Collection, USA
- MNAM, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
- Moravská gallery, Brno, Czech Republic
- Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland
- PPF, Prague Slovenská národná galéria, Bratislava, Slovakia
- The Forbes Collection, Boston, USA
- The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
- Uměleckoprůmyslové museum, Prague, Czech Republic