Bohunka Koklesová

Bohunka Koklesová, PhD., is an Associate Professor and the Rector of the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava (VŠVU), a position she has held since 2019. She works at the Department of Theory and History of Art, where she has been teaching and conducting research for many years. Prior to becoming rector, she served as vice-rector for three consecutive terms.

Her academic journey began at Comenius University Bratislava, Faculty of Arts, where she studied fine arts science from 1990 to 1995. She completed her doctoral studies in 2010 at the Department of Theory and History of Art at the Academy of Fine Arts Bratislava, earning her PhD in art history. In 2017, she was appointed Associate Professor.

Dr. Koklesová specializes in several interconnected research areas:

• History and theory of photography, particularly Slovak photography
• 19th and 20th century art history
• Visual culture studies
• Totalitarian regimes and their relationship to art
• Cultural studies, with a focus on memory studies
• Critical periods of Czechoslovak history, especially pre-war and war years
• Czech-Slovak relations in historical contexts

Her scholarly output reveals a strong focus on the intersection of photography, history, and political regimes, particularly examining the period of the Slovak State (1939-1945) and its aftermath. She has published extensively on how visual culture, especially photography, served as both documentation and propaganda during totalitarian periods. Her work demonstrates a consistent interest in how historical memory is constructed through visual media, with particular attention to Central European contexts.

Dr. Koklesová's significant scholarly contributions include:

• "In the Shadow of the Third Reich, Official Photographs of the Slovak State 1939-1945" (2009)
• "Súmrak doby, prelamovaná história, pamäť, fotografia" (2018)
• Numerous articles on Slovak photography, visual culture, and art history

She has received recognition for her work, most notably the Tatra Banka Foundation Prize for her collaboration on the exhibition "Dream x Reality/Art and Propaganda 1939–1945," which became the most visited exhibition of the year.

As an academic leader and curator, Dr. Koklesová has advised on numerous exhibition projects and has been instrumental in shaping contemporary discourse around Slovak visual culture. She has curated or co-curated significant exhibitions including "The Eighties – Postmodernism in Slovak Fine Art," the "Zone of the Edge" series, and "In the Shadow of the Third Reich." Her curatorial work often focuses on mapping contemporary Slovak photography and examining historical periods through visual media.

Dr. Koklesová is actively involved in the academic and cultural community as a member of AICA (International Association of Art Critics) since 2012 and serves on various artistic and scientific councils of important Slovak cultural institutions including the Slovak National Gallery, Slovak National Theater, and others. In 2019, she co-founded the non-profit organization Spoločnosť Jaromíra Krejcara dedicated to preserving functionalist architecture.