Robert Vano as an inexperienced eighteen-year-old dared to do things many grown and seasoned men wouldn’t even think of, yet he’s not a hero.

He was around the most famous men and the most beautiful women of the world, he met the biggest giants of world’s showbusiness, yet he can’t be considered a world-famous person.

He was making thousands of dollars a day, yet he never became rich.

The little that he planned for never worked out for him and the things that did work out he didn’t ever even think about, not to mention plan on.

He escaped the former Czechoslovakia to free himself from the shackles of the totalitarian slaver, only to partly voluntarily become a slave of the American dream.

He wanted recognition, but America “only” offered success. Seeking recognition, he crossed the world, but not Italy nor Spain, nor Germany nor France could offer. And when he finally reached the point in his life where he no longer craved recognition, that’s when it found him, alongside of media attention bombarding him from every side upon the return to his home country as a greying charismatic man with an American passport.

The wisdoms he collected throughout his life’s journey wouldn’t make for a trilogy – he only learned a few gnomes and tenets that accompanied him through all of his life and that he owes his survival to; so few, that they would only fill up one page of a notebook that fits a breast pocket.

The retrospective, yet sombre exhibition “My name is Robert Vano” is different from anything you’ve seen. It’s as unique as the author himself, whose approach to life was never shaped by a book-esque willpower but by the astounding wolfish instinct to survive. The visitor or an accidental watcher will get to meet someone, with whom they can resonate very easily in terms of the relationship to one’s life and many other things.

Robert Vano is first and foremost sensitive and vulnerable, he can’t be considered a superhero of our modern times. Despite this, his life’s story showcased through his courageous and sincere photographs does declare certain symptoms of heroism and uniqueness.

Adolf Zika