ART WITHIN SURFACES
The Lively Spirit of Steel in Viktor Mácha’s Photography Through his photos Viktor Mácha explains us the charm of an industrial production that he feels to belong to the past: are we really among the last generations to have had the privilege of admiring the cold steel transformation into a warm and lively material?
H
ephaestus, the god of fire, is often depicted in ancient art while working on white-hot metal inside his forge, between sparks and gushes. Our minds frequently recall these evocative
images when talking about steel mills, maybe because these factories make it possible to “tame the devil”, as photographer Viktor Mácha says. ipcm® has interviewed this peculiar artist, who has been documenting the innermost aspects of heavy industry for years. Viktor Mácha was born in 1984 in Prague (Czech Republic). Fascinated from an early age by these “rusty monsters”, where the descendants of Hephaestus and his cyclops work and power such huge plants, since 2006 he has been travelling around the world at his own expense, portraying heavy industrial sites such as iron works, steel works, rolling mills, forges, foundries, and coke plants. Currently, his archive comprises several hundred mills, stretching from the American Midwest to the Asian part of Russian Urals (www.viktormacha.com). The only aim of these photographs is to objectively document the technological processes linked to steel making and shaping, because it is possible that our generation will be one of the last to experience the fascinating world of dark, rumbling factories, where the reflections of white-hot metal on surfaces reveal the warm and lively soul of cold steel. You define yourself as an industrial photographer. What made you to choose such a special (and perhaps unprofitable) subject as the industrial sector? Actually, that self-definition is not correct. It works for public relations managers to get permissions, but to be honest I do not feel like a photographer. Photography is not even my hobby at all. I just fell in love
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N. 67 - JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021 - international PAINT&COATING magazine
© Viktor Mácha