Ladder

Along with 'Face with Metal Spiral,' this photo is part of Baňka’s Figuration collection. Baňka appreciated portraiture for its unique ability to candidly capture human emotion. He believes that portraits reflect personal history, and that the stories of all people are interconnected. Through portraiture, Baňka found he could cultivate connections between people and across time. In this piece, Baňka rested a miniature ladder on the face of a reclining woman. The way the ladder’s shadow wraps across the contour of her forehead integrates the prop effortlessly into the photo. Baňka often added props to his staged portraits to enhance meaning. In these compositions, his carefully chosen and placed items do not act as mere ornaments, but become an extension of the model and symbol of their disposition. It is as if via the ladder one could climb into the private space of the woman’s mind. We are invited to contemplate her mental state and explore her thoughts and feelings. Through this intimate interaction between viewer and subject, the portrait becomes as much about the internal as the external, the immaterial as the material.

[Emelia Ho, wall text in "Suppression, Subversion, and the Surreal: The Art of Czechoslovakian Resistance," USC Fisher Museum of Art, March 9 - May 10, 2019.]