{"id":15933,"date":"2021-09-07T19:39:02","date_gmt":"2021-09-07T17:39:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/croatian-photography.com\/?p=15933"},"modified":"2022-09-29T17:06:48","modified_gmt":"2022-09-29T15:06:48","slug":"jaka-babnik-at-spot-gallery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/croatian-photography.com\/en\/jaka-babnik-at-spot-gallery\/","title":{"rendered":"Jaka Babnik at Spot Gallery – “Exercises in Style”"},"content":{"rendered":"

September 13th – October 8th 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The Spot Gallery and the Office for Photography announce the exhibition\u00a0Exercises in Style \u00a0<\/i>by the photographer Jaka Babnik. The exhibition opening will be held on\u00a013th September at 7 p.m.<\/p>\n

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Jaka Babnik<\/p><\/div>\n

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In his recent series <\/span>Exercises in Style<\/span><\/i> Jaka Babnik focuses on some of the most fundamental questions about the creation of photographic and\/or art works. In a manner of stylistic exercises, he explores transformative tools and unwritten criteria that enable, and constitute, a so-called quality photograph or work of art, both from the point of view of its technical and formal execution, and in terms of choice of subject matter and its intended purpose. He is interested in images that are, given one\u2019s trained cultural and aesthetic codes, visually attractive and formally faultless; however, on their own, these images may not convey anything in particular.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a way, the series of photographs is a result of exercises in knowledge of art theory that is an indispensable tool for creative work in the wider field of visual culture. At the same time, art theory is the foundation to determine rules, patterns and formulas that artists and creators, whether they like it or not, have to follow because they have been proven effective. Therefore, Babnik undertakes an artistic research project in which he primarily turns to himself and his own visual perception. Thereby he establishes the discourse about the ontology of photography and visual culture, as well as contemplating knowledge, experience, cultivated aesthetic, symbols and (pre)memory that determine each individual and his or her way of consuming images. He also turns to (self)irony and humour, as he is well aware that he cannot, however much he tries, be exempt from his cultivated cultural codes that deeply affect his work, be it artistic creation or commercial projects.<\/span><\/p>\n

With a great deal of self-reflection, Babnik\u2019s series poses some of the fundamental questions about photography and visual culture, such as: What constitutes a good and effective photograph? What are the norms, conventions and formulas in visual culture? How can one trace the phenomena of so-called \u201clearned predictability\u201d in the everyday experience? Are most of the social norms completely predictable, to the point that one can expect the outcome based on previous intimate or collective historical experience and knowledge? The artist takes this assumption beyond photography and the photographic medium and he, just as with the newspaper <\/span>Photographs for Illustration Purposes Only<\/span><\/i> (2020), again turns to publishing a printed media, using its form and structure to check the thesis about \u201clearned predictability\u201d with the help of contributors from different fields. The next issue is going to be published in December of 2021.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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On the occasion of the exhibition opening,\u00a0there will be\u00a0a discussion on the new issue entitled\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>Exercises in Style<\/i><\/strong>, with the participation of the photographer Jaka Babnik, the editor Miha Colner and several other contributors, at 6 p.m. in the yard of the Spot Gallery. The journal is the result of a collective action that acts interdisciplinary, bringing together numerous collaborators, theorists and critics from the region.
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The curator of the exhibition is Miha Colner.<\/strong><\/p>\n

–<\/span><\/p>\n

Jaka Babnik<\/strong> (1979) graduated in social studies and history from the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, and has been working as a photographer and cinematographer since 1996. He is the writer and director of several renowned skateboarding films. Currently he works as a photographer, artist and publisher and has gained local and international acclaim with projects such as <\/span>We Are Dogs!<\/span><\/i> (2007-2009), <\/span>Jebodrom<\/span><\/i> (2014), <\/span>Holy Land<\/span><\/i> (2017), <\/span>Why So Serious?<\/span><\/i> (2016-2017), <\/span>Heroes of My Time<\/span><\/i> (2017), <\/span>Pygmalion<\/span><\/i> (2018-2019) and <\/span>Time Levelling<\/span><\/i> (2020). He initiated a collective publishing project, <\/span>Photographs for Illustration Purposes Only<\/span><\/i> (2020), which was released in the form of a newspaper. He is the co-founder and co-owner (together with Bo\u0161tjan Pavleti\u010d) of an independent publishing house, Rostfrei Publishing, that produces artist books and photobooks since 2012. He lives and works in Ljubljana, Slovenia.<\/span><\/p>\n

–<\/span><\/p>\n

As part of the complementary program of the exhibition Office for Photography will be hosting a reading group,\u00a0which will be held on October 4th. More information will be pubblished on the official website <\/span>Contemporary Croatian Photography<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

–<\/span><\/p>\n

The exhibition is supported by City of Zagreb, Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia, Kultura Nova Foundation and Creative Europe.<\/span><\/p>\n

–<\/span><\/p>\n

Opening hours of\u00a0 Gallery Spot:<\/span>
\n<\/span>Mon \u2013 Fri \/ 4 \u2013 8 pm<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

September 13th – October 8th 2021   The Spot Gallery and the Office for Photography announce the exhibition\u00a0Exercises in Style \u00a0by the photographer Jaka Babnik. The exhibition opening will be…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":15931,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,19,1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15933","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-actual","8":"category-spot-gallery","9":"category-uncategorized"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/croatian-photography.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/croatian-photography.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/croatian-photography.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/croatian-photography.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/croatian-photography.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/croatian-photography.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/croatian-photography.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/croatian-photography.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/croatian-photography.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/croatian-photography.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}