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PHOTEUR presented a selection of contemporary Romanian photography at SOLAR Berlin in September and October 2006. On the concrete pillars and walls of the gallery in the entrance hall, photographer Cosmin Bumbut shows a view, immersed in greenish neon lighting, of the prison world of Aiud, a place whose name is dreaded in Romania. His focus is on the tattooed upper arms and breasts of inmates, on their scars and telling faces – criminals displaying their desires on their skins and thus providing astonishing insights: Some of the men appear likeable, the gangster image is mitigated by loving and naïve representations, depictions of female lovers, the feelings going with them, of freedom. Mirela Bratu adds three photographs of women to the scenario, using identical big square formats. They are counterpoints besides the guys and reflect their imprisoned desires. Mirela Bartu precisely catches the demure attractiveness of one of her best female friends and plays with it in a nonchalant way. Heaven and Hell only displays a small section of the southerly-lively photographic scene in Romania, a country which has been making giant steps toward us, but is almost unknown to many of us. We hope that we can somewhat change this in an entertaining way and we took the successful opening on 14 September 2006 as a starting point for further actions of this type.
Text in Deutsch: Photeur zeigte von September bis Oktober 2006 eine Auswahl zeitgenössischer rumänischer Photographie im Éntree des SOLAR Berlin. Die Ausstellung trug den Titel *Heaven and Hell. Auf den Betonpfeilern- und wänden der Galerie des hallenartigen Éntrees gibt der Photograph Cosmin Bumbut (sprich: Bumbutz) einen in grünliches Neonlicht getauchten Einblick in die Gefängniswelt von Aiud, einem Ort, dessen Nennung in Rumänien Gänsehaut erzeugt. Sein Fokus liegt auf den tätowierten Oberarmen und Brustpartien der Inhaftierten, auf deren Narben und sprechenden Gesichtern - Schwerverbrecher, die ihre Sehnsüchte auf der Haut zur Schau tragen und dabei erstaunen: Manch einer der Männer wirkt symphatisch, gebrochen wird das Gangsterimage von den liebevoll-naiven Darstellungen, Umschreibungen der Geliebten, der mit ihr verbundenen Gefühle, der Freiheit. Mirela Bratu steuert dem Szenario drei Frauenbilder bei, im gleichen quadratischen Grossformat photographiert stehen diese kontrapunktierend neben den Mannsbildern, bilden das Ziel der eingekerkerten Sehnsüchte ab. Mirela Bratu hat einen genauen Blick für die scheuen Reize einer ihrer besten Freundinnen und spielt mit diesen in nonchalanter Art. *Heaven and Hell zeigt nur einen kleinen Ausschnitt aus der südländisch- lebendigen Photoszene Rumäniens, einem Land das mit Riesenschritten auf uns zustrebt, dennoch vielen kaum bekannt ist. Wir hoffen, diesem Misstand auf unterhaltsame Art ein Stück weit abzuhelfen. www.photeur.net / www.solar-berlin.de |
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Berlin - Minsk - Moscow The pane of the window, with its scars, stains and scratches, is between us and the human face which Alexandra Catiere wants to show us as an example of many in her home towns of Minsk and Moscow. The pane carries the mark of history. With the background of the photographs, it combines to form an abstractly expressive picture – full of energy like a lithography of DeKooning, and also provocative like Marcel Duchamp`s Large Glass, designed to stir the spectator from his lethargy and move him to view the picture in a dynamic way. In the center is the face which puts us to the test: Do we want to establish eye contact... Maria Kracikova tries to catch the last gleaming of sentiments. The words “Never leave” are attached to a line like a stigma in front of the head of a young woman. On the right, a man holds the line as if to test its tension – according to this photo, these people can no longer be a couple, every details spells no, the glances, the random framing of the photograph, the lost figures in the amorphous space. Life is against it and penetrates Kracikovas photos, it has come to stay. Do not hope for too much and just drift along... Deutsch: Das Glas des Fensters, mit seinen Narben, Flecken und Kratzern steht zwischen uns und dem Menschengesicht, das Alexandra Catiere uns exemplarisch für viele ihrer Heimatstädte Minsk und Moskau zeigen möchte. Das Glas trägt den Gestus der Geschichte, mit dem Hintergrund der Photographien verbindet es sich zu eine abstrakt expressiven Bild - energiegeladen wie eine Lithographie DeKoonings, dazu aufreizend wie Marcel Duchamps Grosses Glas, angelegt um den Zuschauer aus seiner Lethargie zu reissen, ihn zur dynamischen Wahrnehmung des Bildes zu bewegen. Zentral das Gesicht, das uns auf die Probe stellt: Wollen wir Blickkontakt aufnehmen... Maria Kracikova versucht das letzte Leuchten der Gefühle einzufangen. Die Lettern "Never leave" hängen an einer Leine wie ein Stigma vor dem Kopf einer jungen Frau, rechts hält ein Mann die Leine, als wolle er die Spannung prüfen - diese Menschen können laut diesem Bild kein Paar mehr sein, jedes Detail spricht dagegen, die Blicke, der willkürliche Bildauschnitt, die verlorenen Figuren im ungeformten Raum. Das Leben will es nicht so und dringt in Maria Kracikovas Bilder ein, ist gekommen um zu bleiben: Hofft nicht zuviel und lasst euch treiben... |
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An Ode to Parallax "Life is banal quite often. All our lives cannot be identical, and so life is - from the outer perspective - ordinary. There are photographers who, in this stage of recognition, through which all people have to go, apply imagination (which is usually even more boring). But Sláma uniquely takes pictures of his own life and of what he has recognized and understood. He tries to avoid appropriating anything that is not his own. in a quite old fashioned manner, he seems to believe in authenticity; in it he could be a descendant of the parental existentialist generation." (1) Mental images are those which have as their object the relations between people, symbolic acts and feelings accessible to the mind – this is how Gilles Deleuze defines mental image (2). “Feelings accessible to the mind” – these, on first reading it, paradoxically devalued feelings of the artist are what induces Vojtech V. Sláma to operate his apparatus, to press the release of his two-lens camera so as to create a picture of the world in which he lives in a moment of awareness of his own existence in the “togetherness with the others” (3). Vojt?ch V. Sláma was a founding member of the "Ceské Paralaxe" group, a group of phtographers who managed to create a public and entertain it magnificently. This was years ago. Since then, Sláma has been watching with four eyes, thinking eyes whose view is not focused by the cyclop eye of the perfect camera. He uses a Rolleicord, an apparatus dating before the age of the digital deluge. Parallax is created by the differing angles of the two lenses on the world. This is a technological handicap of which the author makes use. His apparatus which has become a companion can be seen in some pictures, as a shadow, a symbolic thing in the act of photographing. Slamá enlarges the negatives into square prints depicting his world. "The call from within this world is a call for beauty” (4) - a beauty which is not old-fashioned, but entirely contemporary. The origin of these photographic works lies in the tradition of Czech photography, whose present state is Slamá´s life, his travels, his loves, and the future is full of an openly displayed melancholy. In light of these feelings impressively designed with the camera it is more than justified to do without color, insist on the square format and refrain from thinking in series of pictures. These are not catalogue pictures of manifestations of an outward reality from the conveyor belts of the academies, of their masters and students, but pictures of an “existence in its ordinariness” (3) which go beyond this so as to inform about the world and the essential things. "The pictures are streaming along, being part of a big adventure... Vojtech V. Sláma stands aside, on the bank, as if he does not believe it, does not want to believe in the speed of the adventure, seeing it his way. In his landscape, things are done differently. No idyll, everything is just as it should be, people have time for themselves; and have time to see and experience. And so does their photographer, too." (5) His pictures convey the idea of a complete life, some call it a “fulfilled” life. This is why his pictures of “festivities, anticipation, enchantment, beauty, happiness, regret” (1) are expressions of the above, they are no documents of a freely selected artistic theme. To Vojtech V. Sláma, to be a photographer is an attitude, a lifestyle. (1) From Antonin Dufek: "Public Privacy of Vojta Sláma", Catalogue "Wolf's honey", Galerie Brno 2004 |
