Exhibition Tono Stano

TONO STANO – MAGICIAN OF IMAGES AND FANTASY. An exhibition of the legend of Slovak and Central European photography at Danubiana.

Since the 1980s, he has been shaping the form of staged photography, connecting reality with dreams, humor with poetry, spontaneity with perfect composition. Tono Stano – a name known throughout the world of photography. His visual stories are full of energy, imagination, and human playfulness, which has influenced entire generations of artists at home and abroad. Come and immerse yourself in a world where photography breathes life, emotion, and humor.

Tono Stano is one of the most famous photographers working in the Central European context, with many connections to the entire world of photography and art. Since the early 1980s, when he entered the art scene, his predominantly staged photographs have captivated audiences with their striking visuals, imagination, humor, and sophistication, influencing subsequent generations of photographers at home and abroad.

In 1985, photography historian Daniela Mrázková noted that Tono Stano had a talent that Czechoslovak photography had lacked for years.

Already in the mid-1980s, as a photography student at FAMU in Prague, he stood out among his fellow students from Slovakia with his spontaneity, playfulness, and bold departure from established models of academic practice. The Slovak New Wave oxygenated the stagnant atmosphere of the period with a strong dose of humor, irony, and exaggeration, while integrating a wide range of methods and techniques from the liberal arts into photography. Staged photography gradually became the expression of an entire generation.

Stano is best known for his figurative compositions, although his work also includes portrait photography and outdoor photography. During his studies, he developed a characteristic style based on postmodern staged photography – individual scenes are carefully arranged, creating various situations and compositions in which the main element is the human body, especially the female body. In Stanov’s conception, nudity is a natural part of human life; his photographs can be provocative, humorous, and provocative at the same time, with exaggeration, a desire for beauty, greatness, infinity…

Stano experiments with various techniques and genres that can overlap and (seemingly) contradict each other. He is constantly connected to contemporary visual art, which he allows to inspire him freely. But his most important inspiration is life itself.

The exhibition at Danubiana in Bratislava is intended as a “working retrospective” – it includes works created in high school and recent photographs, but it is not arranged chronologically, but rather by theme. It includes studio photographs, the series White Shadow and Cosmos, and photographs taken outside the studio, supplemented by smaller collections, including the design of the Crystal Globe grand prize for the 2001 Karlovy Vary Film Festival.

Biography

Tono Stano (born March 24, 1960, Malé Vozokany, Slovakia) studied at the Secondary School of Applied Arts in Bratislava, where, under the influence of Milota Havránková, he turned from graphic design to photography, and then at FAMU in Prague (1980–1986), where he became part of a strong generation of Slovak photographers, later referred to as the “Slovak New Wave.”

From the early 1980s, he developed conceptual and staged photography, working with the body, movement, and light as means of expression, connecting everything with imagination and precise composition. He gained international fame with his iconic film Zmysel (Sense), which appeared on the covers of several important publications on world photography, including William A. Ewing’s book The Body (1994).

Since the 1990s, he has been involved in staged photography and portraiture, as well as other projects, such as the unique, visually striking series White Shadow (since 1991) and the almost sculptural Cosmos (since 2004). His work has been published repeatedly (e.g., the monograph Tono Stano, Fototorst, 2005) and exhibited around the world.

The exhibition is part of the 35th annual Month of Photography, which offers 27 domestic and international exhibitions in November. For more information, visit mesiacfotografie.eu.

Cooperation: Gallery of the Capital City of Prague
Curator team: Magdalena Juříková, Helena Musilová, Tono Stano

Location: Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum, Čunovo, Slovakia

Date: from 9. 11. 2025 – 1. 3. 2026

Opening hours:

Monday – closed
Tuesday – Sundayfrom 10:00 am – 6:00 pm

Entrance fee:

Adults – 12 €
Family (2 adults and 2 students) – 25 €
Pensioners (over 62 years old) – 6 €
Students – 6 €
Children (under 6 years old) – Free
Members of the Danubiana Club – Free
Disabled persons, persons over 75 years old – Free

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