Autoportraits, 2006 - 2007

At the Josip Račić Studio of the Modern Gallery in Zagreb, from 18 December 2007 to 15 January 2008, the Split photographer Valentino Bilić Prcić presented his second solo exhibition to the Zagreb audience. In 2006, he exhibited a notable cycle of photographs printed on large-scale photosensitive anodized aluminum (125 x 92 cm) at the Karas Gallery. It was precisely this portrait cycle – characterised by its technically innovative choice of printing material (which, however, was not an end unto itself but part of a carefully conceived concept of almost perfect harmony between form and content), as well as the extreme subjectivization of the breezy factual reality and a peculiar atmosphere laced with mild discomfort – that prompted the collaboration with exhibition curator Ivana Rončević and the exhibition at the Josip Račić Studio. The framing of the face in close-ups, most often reduced to “cut-off” fragments of the whole, the piercing energy of the image created by juxtaposing two photographic shots, the sfumato effect of the blurry foreground, and, above all, the method of creating the atmosphere through the masterful use of light, as well as the almost painterly quality of the surface, are the trademark qualities that make this author stand out on the Croatian photography scene.

At the Josip Račić Studio, he exhibited a cycle of self-portraits created in the period between August 2007 and August 2008. The title of each photograph is the year and month when it was taken. The psychological immersion in one’s intimate sphere in the form of a monthly pictorial journal entry (with the exception of February 2007) in this instance completely suppresses the ordinarily somewhat narcissistic nature of self-portraiture. Because the states and emotions that these photographs reveal, ranging from the initial discomfort of exposure to the public eye, through anxiety, to acquiescence and melancholy, are conditions in which most of us would not readily put ourselves in front of the camera.

Turning to oneself was an entirely natural progression, after years of portraying the daily life of the city, the familiar and unknown faces and scenes, which have always contained a delicate, sublimated personal register of meanings and moods. An equally important aspect of this cycle, in fact its starting point, is the problematisation of the very medium of photography and the creative act of its production. In an era of technical omnipotence of digital photography, the author wanted to create a cycle that, as an amalgam of nowadays rather distant worlds of analogue and digital photography, would evoke the imperfections of the analogue technique which he no longer uses. The self-portraits were created with a medium-format Voigtländer camera from the early 1930s, while the negatives were developed (in full frame without subsequent cuts!), scanned, and digitally printed without retouching as giclée prints on Hahnemühle paper, in the format 111 X 74 cm. The inadvertent technical “errors” present in the photos created in this way; the irregular contours of the image format, small particles of dust “caught” on film, sudden white patches and bluish flashes that dematerialise the shapes, were used as separate artistic features ​adding to the suggestiveness and atmosphere in the photos.

Before us is a cycle of twelve photographs portraying, within the black edge of the frame, mostly in the foreground, the figure of the author naked to the waist, his gaze often pointed directly at the observer, or at himself in the lens. The author’s nudity in all the pictures is defiantly provocative and immediately eye-catching, but the physical strength and masculinity of the torso is in stark contrast to the emotions displayed on his face, in his eyes, which pervade the scenes created in the intimacy of the room reduced only to a snippet of the wall, the whiteness of the bedsheets, the flash of a mirror, and objects imbued with very personal symbolism (an X-ray, the open pages of Ivan Posavec’ exhibition catalogue...). The density of the emotional charge is almost palpable, while the construction of the space using a series of horizontal planes, and an occasional compositional diagonal, along with the softness of the atmosphere and the almost sensual tactility of surfaces of different textures achieved through lighting, all emphasise the painterly aspect of Valentino’s photography. The scenes in the exterior from the beginning and the end of this cycle are equally personal. The choice of familiar places dear to him, some of which are recognisable from previously exhibited photos, only highlight the author’s emotional states in the moment the self-portraits were taken. However, the most powerful charge and force of this cycle is the atmosphere it engenders; in each of the photos, it is a portrait onto itself.

The repetition of similar frames and compositions in all the photographs underscores the cinematic nature of recording the passage of time and the changes it brings; physical ones, visible to the eye, as well as those imperceptible in terms of sight or atmosphere. What is a year in the life of any of us? It is the thread that binds the flow of our thoughts as we observe these self-portraits.

Sincerity and openness are the elementary starting points of this cycle. These are photographs extremely powerful in their bareness; the author does not refrain from exposing his intimate sphere. The depth of view, however, depends on us, the observers. The gallery space becomes a delicate temple of intimacy in which, despite the public announcement, an aura of confidentiality remains, part of the inscrutability of a personal story that is, on a universal level, an existentialist record laying bare the fragility of our own identity and existence.

Sandi Bulimbašić

The review of the cycle of photographs Self-portraits 2006-2007 was published in the magazine Kontura:

“Valentino Bilić Prcić. Anxiety of Reflection(s)”, in: Kontura Art Magazine, no. 96, 2008, p. 84.

I remember, 2006

In Valentino Bilić Prcić’s latest cycle of photographs, I find myself having a dual experience: of the one observing and recording those observations, but also, of the one being observed. Both situations have happened before, but until now, never simultaneously. I admit, the experience of being portrayed for the cycle 15 Minutes of Fame was not as painless as this latest one. The difference is that this time the identities of those being portrayed are almost irrelevant and without meaning for the overall scene. To that extent, it did not matter to any of us, his friends and acquaintances, whether the face in the picture corresponded to the real “me”. This time the photographer avoided individual vanities and the anxiety of relationships with ever-uncertain outcomes.

How much does a person’s face really say about their identity, especially in a snatched fragment of reality such as a photograph? Behind the mask hides another mask, Nietzsche wrote. The face is more an enigma than an answer; as soon as we think we have “deciphered” it, it slips away.[1]

The cycle I Remember may, in part, be understood as a contribution to the portrait genre, which, unlike the obsession with body, was for decades quite absent in art. What the author is really interested in is discourse, a consistently executed concept, created by patiently recording moments imbued with a special atmosphere, which the exhibited photographs may serve to reconstruct. The emergence of such an interest was thematically and artistically hinted at in his 2003 work Sequence.

In his photographic work, Valentino lives to the rhythm of the city’s pulsating daily life. Perhaps somewhat tired of the historical deposits of the city and scenes devoid of people with a touch of the surreal that attracted him in earlier years, with this cycle he returns to his primary interest: the human form and portraiture.

In the foreground are the faces of people close to him, his friends and acquaintances, taken in everyday situations, most often pleasantly sitting down to sip their coffee at the Split Riva. The author’s intention isn’t to portray them; this is confirmed by how their faces are framed, often out of focus, blurred, straining the eye; they vibrate hazily, making it uncomfortable to observe, even barely endurable in some instances. The way the photos were taken is important. They were not shot furtively, as the out-of-focus faces might suggest at first glance. Quite the opposite, they were snapped in close-up, from up close. The people in them are highly aware of the camera, but relaxed, their reactions spontaneous, as if they weren’t facing the “black hole” of the lens that does not always take you where you expect to arrive. Ignoring the sometimes brazen aggressiveness of being photographed was only possible since these were friends; anyone else would find such proximity of the camera quite uncomfortable.

Thus, his friends “serve” him for what he was actually pursuing in this cycle, which is a particular atmosphere of latent discomfort and tension in almost all the photographs. The documentarist reality is fully subjectivised by the way the photographer captures the moment: next to the face in the foreground, he was actually after something “underneath” the entire time. The background is just as important, if not more so than the foreground; it carries the story that is consistently carried out and patiently searched for in every shot. It is sharp and carrying the scene that overlaps or intensifies the mood of the foreground, making it almost uncanny, or on the other hand, creates an atmosphere completely opposite to the foreground. It is precisely in this counterpoint of the two planes, compressed within the frame by the use of a telephoto lens, regardless of the actual distance, that the piercing energy of the image is created. In several photos, there is only a big void looming in the background.

It is important to mention the technical aspect of the execution that adds to the discomfort and anxiety, which has, in the twists created in the interstitial space between the two photographic planes, upended the factual and superficial simplicity of the scene. By sharpening the background instead of the foreground, the true potential of the portrait lens remains unused. The result is everything a portrait is not, hazy faces that are uncomfortable to observe. In the author’s intention to amplify the discomfort, the enlargements are quite important – the faces in the photos are larger than those in real life. The distortion of human proportions is always disturbing so the author’s intention is quite clear. Even when they are smiling, these faces are somewhat anxiety-inducing. The choice of printing the photos on aluminium plates is not simply the author’s innovative technical gimmick. The coldness of the metal and the muted colours correspond to the stiltedness of the cinematically framed scenes and a certain absence of the people present in the shots, caught in an unusual blend of layered realities under the directorial gaze of the photographer.

No matter how mutedly uncomfortable these photographs are, they are eye-catching, seductive, aestheticized in a positive sense of the word, well-conceived in their framing, harmony of colours and compositional solutions. They are not objective witnesses to a particular time or space, nor to the people they depict. The author has created his own reality and atmosphere he wants to commit to memory. Once again, he has demonstrated that photography is created first of all in the heart of the observer and that its reality, achieved exclusively through artistic means, becomes completely autonomous, freed from any connection with the reality of the captured moment.

What is truth when it comes to photography? That which really happened at the moment it was recorded or that which we feel while observing it, unencumbered by how it was created. Although in this case I am in possession of both truths, I always choose the latter. That for which artistic aspiration will never be exhausted or disappear. The open(-ended) image leaves room for individual interpretation.

Sandi Bulimbašić

Review published in:

Valentino Bilić Prcić. I Remember..., exhibition catalogue, Split: The Galić Salon; Zagreb: Karas Gallery, 2006.

[1] Le visage comme énigme is the title of the text by Dominique Baqué, Art Press no. 317, November 2005, pp. 42-52.

I Remember…Summer, 2008

Two years after the cycle I Remember…, the cycle I Remember…Summer was created, for the first time exhibited at the Photo Club Split Gallery in 2008. Summer as relaxation, leisure, blue skies, sun, sea, beach... The soothing sunset, pleasure, an abundance of joy, relaxation, but also the anxiety of transience, of return, or simply melancholy. All of this is present in the shots captured by the lens of the photographer who uses his gaze to single out a captured moment, turning a seemingly ordinary summer scene into an uncanny image. Perhaps this cycle marks the origin point of the photographic research displayed in the cycles Events and Scenes, created from 2017 to the present.

Sandi Bulimbašić

Events, 2017 - 2019

Since his first exhibitions during the second half of the 1980s, Valentino Bilić Prcić has nurtured a conceptual approach to photography, as well as a recognisable visual aesthetic and sensibility. His photographs are always more than what they seemingly depict, while also possessing superior aesthetic qualities of frame conception, as well as composition and technical execution.

The series of photographs titled Events, which the author presented for the first time in the exhibition at the Škola Gallery, was mostly created in Split, in the period between 2017 and early 2019, although the photographs taken in 2012, during the author’s extended stay in Zagreb, mark the beginning of his reflection on the cycle. In this latest cycle, Valentino continues his exploration of the everyday life of urban public spaces as part of a conceptually imagined photographic story.

The motif of the city is a constant of sorts in the author’s work. At the same time, a look onto the city is always a look inside himself as well, while the public space is transformed into an examination of the personal and the intimate. From urban rappers and prominent symbols of the city in the cycle Urbophilia or It’s Nice to Live in Split (2001), to teasing reality in the night scenes imbued with a cinematic aesthetics in the cycle Summer Cinema (2004), the latent anxiety of empty urban spaces in the cycle Urbophilia Nova – The Visible and the Invisible (2005), in which the “invisible” has a rather personal register of the meaning given to the photographs by the author, to the urban pastime in the form of friendly gatherings and apparent portraits in the cycle I Remember... (2006), we follow the author’s interpretation of the city and its iconography.

Although conceptually it is a continuation of the cycle I Remember... in which the artistic reality of photography is freed from the connection with the reality of the recorded moment, the cycle Events differs in terms of aesthetic and the choice of principal motif. At the same time, it is a continuation of the author’s research into the “truth in photography”, the enigma of scenes, the relationship between the visible and the invisible, the real and the surreal.

The starting point of the cycle is an event, a scene that attracts the sharp photographic eye and, in the author’s contemplation, the photographic image has already acquired an aura of “super-reality”, while the discomfort and anxiety are more intensely present and accomplished using a different visual aesthetic. “Events” are children playing, a walk with the dog, a football match, a moment of rest on a bench, reading a book, a sudden movement or an accidental glance into the camera, a baby carriage covered with a skull-pattern fabric...

Real city scenes, of people frozen mid-movement performing an action, resembling film stills. Capturing the scenes of urban everyday life, and in line with his signature aesthetic – of frame composition, (un)sharpening different planes, exquisitely capturing light sensations – he transposes the motif into a scene that transcends the actual event, resonating with palpable discomfort.

Sometimes the discomfort is felt in the mood of a scene or the relationship between the protagonists in the photo, while other times it is achieved by establishing a relationship between the photographer and the photographed subject. Although most of the time it was not his intention to be seen, in the instance of some of the photos in the cycle, it is precisely the fact that he has been noticed that contributes to the uncanny atmosphere of the scene.

The photos were taken in such a way that the foreground is usually flickering, out of focus, and sometimes the shapes are slightly distorted because, it is interesting to mention, a large number of photos were taken while driving, in the seat of the passenger, and were taken through the window or windshield of the car.

otografije su snimljene na način da je prvi plan najčešće treperav, neizoštren, a ponekad su oblici i blago iskrivljeni jer, zanimljivo je spomenuti, velik broj fotografija je nastao za vrijeme vožnje, na mjestu suvozača, i snimljen je kroz prozor ili vjetrobransko staklo automobila.

The figures of the main protagonists in the scene, who are in the focus, are often “cut off”, partially hidden, or even omitted from the frame entirely (like the dog that we do not see at the end of the leash that a girl is holding in one of the photos), which emphasises the tension and internal dynamics of the scene, the impression of an isolated moment of everyday life.

An individual, especially an artist possessed of a refined sensibility, cannot but feel the neuroses and tensions of the moment they inhabit and express these in their own unique way in works of art. Therefore, the tension and discomfort that take place within the photographic scene in Valentino Bilić Prcić’ latest cycle of photographs, testify not only to the face and the underside of the city, its urbanity and the spirit of the ages, but also to a personal, intimate experience of an often-anxious reality.

Undoubtedly, Events is another excellent and intriguing cycle by an exceptional author from whom the younger generations of future photographers have much to learn, about the complexity of the world and the prejudices about photography as an unambiguous reproduction of reality, as do we all.

Sandi Bulimbašić

Review published in:

Valentino Bilić Prcić. Events, exhibition catalogue, Split: Škola Gallery, 2019.

Tekst objavljen u:

Valentino Bilić Prcić. Događaji, katalog izložbe, Split: Galerija Škola, 2019.