Between Ideal and Reality
€100–€600
EN
One of my colleagues from our student days was exceptionally gifted across all visual disciplines — an outstanding draftsman, architect, designer, and photographer, a perfectionist who, in everything he did, pursued an ideal he saw in Switzerland: order, work, and discipline.
After graduating from the Faculty of Architecture in Belgrade in the 1970s, he began to work intensively and very successfully in photography. I remember how one day he brought Cibachrome paper from Switzerland and gave each of us a few sheets of what, to me at the time, seemed like almost perfect photographic paper.
And then, one day, he decided to stop photographing, explaining that in a country slowly falling apart, he did not have the conditions he considered necessary for his work. We tried, in vain, to convince him that ideal conditions do not exist anywhere, and that one must adapt and work with what is available.
This photograph was taken on a rooftop in Belgrade — imperfect, far from “Swiss,” yet full of layers, traces of time, and accidents that give it character.
Perhaps the problem is not in what we lack, but in our inability to recognize the value of what we already have.
SR
Jedan moj kolega iz studentskih dana bio je izuzetno nadaren za sve likovne discipline, vrhunski crtač, arhitekta, dizajner i fotograf, perfekcionista koji je u svemu težio idealu koji je video u Švajcarskoj — redu, radu i disciplini.
Posle diplomiranja na Arhitektonskom fakultetu u Beogradu, sedamdesetih godina, počeo je intenzivno i veoma uspešno da se bavi fotografijom. Sećam se kako je jednog dana iz Švajcarske doneo Cibachrome papir i svima podelio po nekoliko listova tog, za mene tada gotovo savršenog foto-papira.
A onda je jednog dana odlučio da prestane da se bavi fotografijom, uz objašnjenje da u zemlji koja se polako raspada nema uslove kakve smatra neophodnim za rad. Uzalud smo ga ubeđivali da idealni uslovi ne postoje nigde i da se treba prilagoditi i raditi sa onim što imaš.
Ova fotografija je snimljena na jednom beogradskom krovu — nesavršenom, daleko od “švajcarskog”, ali punom slojeva, tragova vremena i slučajnosti koje mu daju karakter.
Možda problem nije u onome što nemamo, već u tome što ne umemo da vidimo vrednost u onome što imamo.