His snapshots tell stories that need no further comment; his portraits often suggest complex biographies behind the images. Situational photography determines most of his work, mainly without the knowledge of the actors involved, but always with the gaze of the documentary artist, who does not shy away from the depiction of the diversity of poverty, grief, fragility, humour and joy. With his works, Igor Kovac consciously joins the tradition of black-and-white photography from the 1930s to the 1950s, following in the footsteps of Henri Cartier-Bresson, his great role model.
As with Cartier-Bresson, his paintings can be easily and quickly decoded at first, working with a moment of surprise and yet also adhering to strict parameters within production. With his compositions, Igor Kovac often leaves us in the dark about what he wants to tell us beyond the first glance about the selected excerpts, portraits, snapshots, and his situation photography. Coming from a film background, he knows how to deal with angle and the detail of his chosen subjects and also to play with using them in a staged way; the “not visible” often dominate his image compositions and generates that moment of tension in which the imminent or at this moment emerging becomes the dominant feature.
Igor Kovac has been photographing since he was 15 years old and is self-taught. In his youth, the writings of F. M. Dostoyevsky and films by A. Tarkowski influenced him and inspired his works. He finds the motifs for his photographs during extended trips to the south of Europe, especially in Italy. Igor Kovac was born in Bratislava in 1964. He studied journalism and film at Comenius University and the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava. After various assignments between 1995 and 2000 for Slovak and Czech television, he has since worked as a freelance photographer and in the field of advertising.
