slate, plinth, h. 60 cm, 30 × 60 × 30 cm

purchased in 2022

The object is composed of a series of interlocked slate roof tiles, creating the impression of a complex house succumbing to decay. Slate as a roofing material was typical of both rural and urban roofscapes in the border regions of the northeastern corner of Moravia, such as the Jeseníky Mountains, the Bruntál and Rýmařov areas. These are regions marked by a gradual population decline. The title of Buček’s slate object Vanished reflects this disappearance of life from the borderlands. The symbolism of the house is directly proportional to human existence, civilization, family, and future prospects. It is simple: where houses are being built, human life thrives; where they are not, or where they are falling into ruin, it does not. The slate roofing shaped into the form of a house refers to this reality. The individual overlapping plates of slate themselves form a structure evoking the disintegration of an original solid mass, a kind of irreversible weathering, where the balance between solid and empty space gradually evens out.

Translation created with the assistance of AI (ChatGPT).