ART-PRESENTATION: Last Folio, A Photographic Journey with Yuri Dojc

Yuri Dojc, Kosice synagogue, 2006, Pigmenting ink on fine art archival rag paper, 80 x 120 cm, Ed. 5/8, © Yuri Dojc, Courtesy Galerie Karsten Greve Cologne/St. Moritz/Paris and Last Folio Project by Yuri Dojc & Katya KrausovaPhotographer, artist and archivist Yuri Dojc is positioned at the helm of an expansive practice that encompasses many kinds of looking. His multi-lens trajectory, pivoting from, formerly, an established commercial photography practice to that of, now, an artful observer of history’s most vulnerable vestiges, is a fitting inversion or the world’s categorical shifts in its regard of Dojc himself.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Galerie Karsten Greve Archive

For the first time in France is on presentation Yuri Dojc’s project “Last Folio: A Photographic Journey with Yuri Dojc”, at Galerie Karsten Greve in Paris. Yuri Dojc began working on the Last Folio project after meeting a Holocaust survivor in 1997. A successful commercial photographer, Dojc originally began his career in photography after emigrating from Slovakia to Canada in 1969. So moved by his meeting with the survivor, he returned to his homeland and began the “Last Folio” project. Dojc began making portraits of Slovakia’s last living Holocaust survivors, then he moved on to documenting abandoned synagogues, Jewish cemeteries, and other fragments of the country’s Jewish past. Time had stood still since 1942 in Bardejov, Slovakia, until nearly 10 years ago when Yuri Dojc returned to visit his family’s former home. On the eve of World War II, many of the villagers had fled, and those remaining were taken away to concentration camps. Dojc believes that the books represent a monument to the people who don’t have monuments. “As an artist I feel fortunate to be able to express myself though these photos, and to be able to bring the past to the present”. The multi-media exhibition includes photographs of objects and interiors, abandoned synagogues, portraits of Holocaust survivors and a documentary film of Dojc’s artistic journey by the film and television producer/director and writer, Katya Krausova, who collaborated closely with Dojc throughout the project. A 20-minute edited version of the film shot during his numerous trips to Slovakia is included in the exhibition. Together with the survivor portraits they create a greater context from which to view the photographs. The documentary film, also entitled “Last Folio”, undertakes a personal journey into the past and present of Slovakia’s Jewish community. Through interviews with Shoah survivors who remained in Slovakia, as well as the story of Yuri’s parents who spent the war in hiding, the film looks at both the help Slovakian Jews received and the anti-Semitism they experienced. It is Dojc’s stunningly beautiful photographs that let us experience the vibrant cultural history of Slovakian Jews through the now abandoned schools, synagogues and mikvahs (ceremonial baths) he lovingly captures with his camera.

Info: Galerie Karsten Greve, 5 rue Debelleyme, Paris, Duration: 28/1-28/2/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-19:00, www.galerie-karsten-greve.com

Yuri Dojc, Synagogue Sastin, 2007, Pigmenting ink on fine art archival rag paper, 80 x 120 cm, Ed. 2/8, © Yuri Dojc, Courtesy Galerie Karsten Greve Cologne/St. Moritz/Paris and Last Folio Project by Yuri Dojc & Katya Krausova
Yuri Dojc, Synagogue Sastin, 2007, Pigmenting ink on fine art archival rag paper, 80 x 120 cm, Ed. 2/8, © Yuri Dojc, Courtesy Galerie Karsten Greve Cologne/St. Moritz/Paris and Last Folio Project by Yuri Dojc & Katya Krausova

 

 

Yuri Dojc, Library shelf, 2007 (Bardejov), Pigmenting ink on fine art archival rag paper, 80 x 120 cm, Ed. 3/8, © Yuri Dojc, Courtesy Galerie Karsten Greve Cologne/St. Moritz/Paris and Last Folio Project by Yuri Dojc & Katya Krausova
Yuri Dojc, Library shelf, 2007 (Bardejov), Pigmenting ink on fine art archival rag paper, 80 x 120 cm, Ed. 3/8, © Yuri Dojc, Courtesy Galerie Karsten Greve Cologne/St. Moritz/Paris and Last Folio Project by Yuri Dojc & Katya Krausova

 

 

Yuri Dojc, Fragment of a Torah scroll, 2015, Pigmenting ink on fine art archival rag paper, 50 x 70 cm, Ed. 1/12, © Yuri Dojc, Courtesy Galerie Karsten Greve Cologne/St. Moritz/Paris and Last Folio Project by Yuri Dojc & Katya Krausova
Yuri Dojc, Fragment of a Torah scroll, 2015, Pigmenting ink on fine art archival rag paper, 50 x 70 cm, Ed. 1/12, © Yuri Dojc, Courtesy Galerie Karsten Greve Cologne/St. Moritz/Paris and Last Folio Project by Yuri Dojc & Katya Krausova

 

 

Left: Yuri Dojc, "Letter Shin" Cemetery Kosice, 2007, Pigmenting ink on fine art archival rag paper, 120 x 80 cm, Ed. 1/8, © Yuri Dojc, Courtesy Galerie Karsten Greve Cologne/St. Moritz/Paris and Last Folio Project by Yuri Dojc & Katya Krausova. Right: Yuri Dojc, Petrified books - cemetery Lucenec, 2010, Pigmenting ink on fine art archival rag paper, 70 x 50 cm, Ed. 1/12, © Yuri Dojc, Courtesy Galerie Karsten Greve Cologne/St. Moritz/Paris and Last Folio Project by Yuri Dojc & Katya Krausova
Left: Yuri Dojc, “Letter Shin” Cemetery Kosice, 2007, Pigmenting ink on fine art archival rag paper, 120 x 80 cm, Ed. 1/8, © Yuri Dojc, Courtesy Galerie Karsten Greve Cologne/St. Moritz/Paris and Last Folio Project by Yuri Dojc & Katya Krausova. Right: Yuri Dojc, Petrified books – cemetery Lucenec, 2010, Pigmenting ink on fine art archival rag paper, 70 x 50 cm, Ed. 1/12, © Yuri Dojc, Courtesy Galerie Karsten Greve Cologne/St. Moritz/Paris and Last Folio Project by Yuri Dojc & Katya Krausova