Promotion 1985-1992
The meaning of the term promotion can be interpreted differently in different contexts. Both photography cycles show two different contexts of two groups of people - tourists and soldiers, and two different promotions. The first cycle is a story of soldiers promoted through a ritual of six (later twelve) blows of belt on their backside. At that time an illegal action, it points at both the decimated mentality and the state of then socialist army, where this cruel ritual of veteran soldiers is passed down, and it was up to rookies, the newly recruited soldiers to stay in line with the continuity of the depraved practice. The bizarre show of not promoting, but of humiliation, smelled of military attorney. The Lincoln Memorial in Washington represents a sort of a paraphrase, an antithesis, and an existential meaning of promoting and experiencing freedom or lack thereof. The memorial is a sacred temple of democracy to which thousands of tourists travel and stand before the marble statue of the known president in order to experience and eternalize the ritual of promotion.
