Tribute to Gustav Oberman
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- Tribute to Gustav Oberman
- Pocta Gustavu Obermanovi
- 1970
- 6 b&w photographs, each approx. 67 x 100 cm
The outdoor action “Homage to Gustav Oberman“ was carried out in March 1970 and meant to be a tribute to the shoemaker Oberman from the city of Humpolec who used to walk about the surrounding hills at the beginning of the Second World War to personally protest against German occupation by spitting fire, and who it just so happens was also once arrested by the police. In the fields of Bransoudov outside of Humpolec, Zorka Ságlová and her friends arranged and incinerated a composition of approximately twenty piles of gasoline-soaked rags placed in the snowy landscape at night. This quiet land art project involved only very few of her friends and was intended to leave imprints in the deep snow. Besides the reference to Oberman, this area was also historically loaded with pagan myths told in the 13th century that also alluded to frequent fires on the surrounding hills. For Ságlová and her friends, the fires produced a highly aesthetic and romantic moment with their small craters successively appearing and deepening in the snow. W.S.