{"id":30311,"date":"2025-05-22T14:20:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-22T12:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/croatian-photography.com\/?p=30311"},"modified":"2025-08-29T09:43:22","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T07:43:22","slug":"drop-dead-photography-exhibition-of-works-by-zeljko-jerman-on-the-occasion-of-the-10th-anniversary-of-the-spot-gallery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/croatian-photography.com\/en\/drop-dead-photography-exhibition-of-works-by-zeljko-jerman-on-the-occasion-of-the-10th-anniversary-of-the-spot-gallery\/","title":{"rendered":"“DROP DEAD PHOTOGRAPHY”: Exhibition of works by \u017deljko Jerman on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Spot Gallery"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Office for Photography invites you to the opening of the exhibition of the prominent conceptual artist \u017deljko Jerman, held on<\/strong> Monday, 9 June 2025, at 7:00 p.m.<\/strong> at the Spot Gallery (\u010cani\u0107eva 6, Zagreb). The exhibition brings together works from the private collections of Bojana \u0160vertasek and Darko \u0160imi\u010di\u0107, especially highlighting Jerman\u2019s experimental and innovative use of the photographic medium. The curators of the exhibition are Sandra Kri\u017ei\u0107 Roban and Darko \u0160imi\u010di\u0107. After the opening, the jazz band IRK Three (Domagoj Leljak, Krunoslav Leva\u010di\u0107 and Ivar Roban Kri\u017ei\u0107) will perform at the courtyard of the Office for Photography.<\/p>\n

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During the exhibition, the programme will also include a workshop on making photograms, titled Is there any point in lying down on paper and repeating the unrepeatable?<\/em>, the launch of the new issue of the magazine Fototxt<\/em> vol. 9\/10, dedicated to the tenth anniversary of the Spot Gallery and artist \u017deljko Jerman, a panel discussion Memories of Jerman<\/em>, and a screening of Jerman\u2019s short film, \u00a0The Film That Might Be Continued<\/em> (1975\/76, 6\u2019) and other experimental films selected by Sara Simi\u0107. The above events will be accompanied by a sale of printed volumes published by the Office for Photography.<\/p>\n

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\u017deljko Jerman, “Krepaj fotografijo (Drop Dead Photography)”, 1973<\/p><\/div>\n

Jerman\u2019s photographs, which we attribute to the photographic medium for lack of a better alternative, are gestures that reveal what they are actually made of, without being representational. Sometimes we might point at one of the works and say that we recognise a human form (surrendered to gradual disintegration, like most of what we see or are able to name), but this procedure will not get us far. That is precisely why the decision to reserve for Jerman the tenth anniversary of the photography exhibition space, the Spot Gallery, is symbolic. Because, as on several previous occasions, we are not concerned with what the photographs depict. We are simply letting them, in Barthes\u2019 words,[1]<\/a> \u00a0be indefatigable expressions<\/em>, of what the artists created, ardently advocating photography. As always, the meticulously prepared documentation that Darko \u0160imi\u010di\u0107 has collected over the years \u2013 dedicated to the artist and his work \u2013 is the indispensable \u201cground zero\u201d from which I depart. Among other things, it contains the text of his important exhibition, held in 1975 at the Centre for Photography, Film, and Television (CEFFT) in Zagreb.<\/p>\n

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Jerman\u2019s journey through photography begins with a photography course he took in 1968, which coincides almost exactly with his membership in a rock band. It is a time when the world is grey and he captures it in grey photographs, combining different techniques and often writing on photographic paper. His short statements are almost manifestos; there are also dates, death is a frequent (and inevitable) motif, and the formats he employs are already demanding. Not all, but the width of the photographic paper that was sold in rolls was set at 100 cm and measured 10 metres in length. In his own home he opened the photographic studio called Blow Up in 1970, a few years after the release of Michelangelo Antonioni\u2019s eponymous film. Martek states that Jerman\u2019s friends were impressed by this sort of initiative, which was rare at that time.<\/p>\n

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Radoslav Putar states that Jerman\u2019s overstepping of photographic boundaries occurs \u201cat the moment of stagnation or at least stabilisation of advances in the promotion of photography in our milieu\u201d.[2]<\/a> From today\u2019s perspective, it was still a time of exceptional developments in photography, of the promotion <\/em>that was made possible by the launch of the magazine Spot<\/em> in 1972, as well as institutional support of the Gallery of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade and the Rotov\u017e Exhibition Salon in Maribor; in parallel, the series of exhibitions titled New Photography<\/em>[3]<\/a> promoted significant developments on the scene, especially the pivotal experiments of the conceptual 1970s. Although we will almost unhesitatingly regard him in this key, Jerman\u2019s sensibility does not unquestionably yield to conceptualism. If we focus on the subject (which rests at the root of subjectivity) and we resist lamentations about its separation from the object (which is to some extent appropriate for photography as a medium that, in principle, enables neutral perception), we will probably also arrive at self-realisations, displaced from the mind to the body.[4]<\/a> In fact, it is precisely the body that becomes the collective space of Jerman\u2019s senses, which he begins to use in the early 1970s, aware of the limitations of the medium in which he operates.<\/p>\n

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Jerman remains known for the fact that he obstructed photographic techniques, often avoiding the use of the camera itself, or rather, reducing its expressive potential to the lowest possible level.[5]<\/a> The artist\u2019s life and body were his enduring tool and object of interest, uncompromisingly presented in all phases of creative and vital force, as well as powerlessness. This state was never peaceful nor subdued, while his works continued their struggle for survival \u2013 especially those executed on photo paper by spilling chemicals, which he sent out into the world without adequate protection. His messages from the early 1970s onwards attest to a unique artistic practice of distinctly existentialist, ethical and self-destructive characteristics. Among other things, he captured certain intermedial happenings, exhibition actions, and wall inscriptions that he most likely wrote himself, subsequently intervening in the photographs in line with his principle of acting \u201cwith all available means, without prejudice about autonomy of the medium\u201d, as he termed it.[6]<\/a> Jerman remains unclear, often communicating with himself, letting us come closer to the place where he left a significant mark on the world, even though, in his words, that world was not his.<\/p>\n

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Sandra Kri\u017ei\u0107 Roban<\/p>\n

Excerpt from the text to be published in the magazine FOTOTXT 9\/10.<\/strong><\/h5>\n

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\u017deljko Jerman <\/strong>(Zagreb, 1949 \u2013 Kor\u010dula, 2006) was a prominent conceptual artist, a member of the informal Group of Six Authors active during the 1970s, and the Working Community of Artists \u2013 Podroom. He demonstrated a strong interest in photography as early as the second half of the 1960s, and in 1970, he opened the photography studio Blow Up, at his house in Vo\u0107arska Street. In his work, he consistently explored the possibilities, limits and potential of the photographic medium \u2013experimenting with chemicals, the development process, negatives, and photo paper, and he approached photography in a highly expressive manner \u2013 as an object which he intends to cut up, tear or burn. He often made use of textual elements, which serve to further emphasise the existentialist aspect of his works. By exhibiting in public space, he introduced personal messages and intimate reflections into the context of everyday life.<\/p>\n

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The exhibition is organised in collaboration with Bojana \u0160vertasek and Darko \u0160imi\u010di\u0107, whom we would like to thank for their assistance in conducting research and for generously loaning us works from their collections.<\/p>\n

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Related events:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n