You have now changed that story about drawing on photographs with claiming that these works are actually sketches for a sculpture, why have you done it?<\/em><\/p>\nYou\u2019re right, and at the same time, you\u2019re wrong. I spent years drawing on photographs when it was forbidden on the basis of hygienic reason, for preserving the purity of the medium, or however it was called.
\nAnd then, with the emergence of digital photography, the purity of the medium was forgotten, and now everybody is drawing on photographs by making additions, retouches, cut-outs, and that is something which became completely normal. Drawing and painting on photographs is no longer surprising, and a lot of people can\u2019t even tell that the photos have been changed in anyway, so I began to wonder if you could create a sculpture through photography. In that same catalogue you\u2019re referring to, I already mentioned that idea.<\/p>\n
\u00a0So, are these photographsof yours even photographs?<\/em><\/p>\nI don\u2019t believe they are. They are sketches for a sculpture. All the photographsmade by all photographers throughout history are indeed some kind of a sketch for a sculpture.
\nThe photographs turn something which has three dimensions into something which has two. They find shadows and light particularly important and delightful and they sculpt that which delights them.
\nAll the other photographers are doing the opposite of what I do. They make photos of three-dimensional objects, something that is plastic, sculptural in nature \u2013 faces, houses, trees (i.e. sculptures) \u2013 and through their photography, they change them into the \u201csketches\u201d of what these objects actually look like.
\nI\u2019m interested in the reverse process \u2013 to create a three-dimensional object from a two-dimensional sketch. I would like to create a sculpture on the basis of that sketch.<\/p>\n
Does that mean that, for example, a 3D printer would presentfor you an ideal solution for creating a sculpture?<\/em><\/p>\nNo, but a 3D printer could perhaps help photography in general, i.e. photographers, to give back to three-dimensional objects what photography has taken from them throughout history. Everything which these printers produce through photopolymerization or some other technique, are actually 3D \u201cphotographs,\u201d i.e. copies of a real object, just in a 3D format. Photography has been previously described as a copy of real objects, and now, we have the same thing with 3D printers.<\/p>\n
Why do a lot of your photographs come in pairs or in sequences of four photographs? Are they group-sculptures or are you telling a story in sequences?<\/em><\/p>\nSure, you could say these are group sculptures. Some things are grouped on the basis of their formal similaritiesrather than their content.And sometimes, I get so absorbed by individual objects that I shoot them several times in different ways. ConsideringI rarely throw anything away, because negatives are expensive, I wish I could exhibit even the completely black photographs or spoiled negatives.<\/p>\n
Are you familiar with Walker Evans\u2019 photography\u2013 his photographs of objects and various tools? With William Wegman\u2019s photographs of a dog he obsessively recorded? Or with the Fischli & Weiss\u2019photography? Man Ray\u2019s?<\/em><\/p>\nI\u2019m not.<\/p>\n
Towards which style in photography are you most inclined?
\n<\/em>In that same catalogue, you said that your photographs look surreal.
\n<\/em>Do you still hold that belief?<\/em><\/p>\nYes, it seems that I\u2019m still most inclined toward surrealism. It is the photographic style closest to my own. Everything, or almost everything, looks cheerfully surreal to me.<\/p>\n
Are you one of those who were influenced by the photography of Polet?<\/em><\/p>\nYes, absolutely.<\/p>\n
In what way?<\/em><\/p>\nThese photographers taught me that every photograph can be used \u2013 even the ones which were not well exposed, poor in technical quality etc. That is also what I do; I never throw away anything.<\/p>\n
Is that all?<\/em><\/p>\nYes. It was the age of punk in everything \u2013 from music to politics, even photography.
\nFurthermore, they were ahead of their time. After having completed their assignments \u2013 concerts, interviews and the like \u2013 they brought their photographs \u2013 still wet and recently shot\u2013 straight to the printers, almost as though they were polaroids. Many of them didn\u2019t even use a camera before, but they weren\u2019t stressed about it. Everybody is doing it today. You don\u2019t need to be educated to use your camera phone. We are all users of such instant photography. It is their legacy. However, they weren\u2019t at all interested in the aesthetics, while cell phones are programmed to record everything as nicely as possible.<\/p>\n
\u00a0What about the black border around your photographs?<\/em><\/p>\nWell, Hokusai invented it long before they did. On the example of my graphics, especially on the \u201cmargins\u201d \u2013 in small format booklets \u2013 it is obvious how this black border helps to frame the drawing and prevent it from \u201closing\u201ditself within the whiteness of the page.<\/p>\n
I have a distinct feeling that your view on photography is a bit twisted or are you deliberately talking to me in that way?<\/em><\/p>\nI\u2019m actually really trying to be serious. Every answer that I\u2019ve given to you is well thought-through.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The interview with Goran Trbuljak was not signed on the author\u2019s request.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
* gelatin silver print on baryte paper,enlarged by hand, 40 x 30 cm, 18#, edition 1\/2<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Office for Photography announces the opening of a new exhibition at the SPOT Gallery: GORAN TRBULJAK Sketches for a Sculpture * (stone, marble, iron), 1993 \u20132015 21.10. \u2013…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":3044,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[272,25,19],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3236","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-gallery-program","8":"category-actual","9":"category-spot-gallery"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/croatian-photography.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3236","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\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/croatian-photography.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/croatian-photography.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/croatian-photography.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/croatian-photography.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/croatian-photography.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/croatian-photography.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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