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Collective exhibition 6th of April
April 2026, Collegium Artisticum, Sarajevo
Selection of three photographs:
1. Heavy walls
2. Unstable equilibrium
3. In port -
Collective exhibition Promotion of cultural heritage through design
2nd to 12th of February 2026 in Galerija Općine Novi Grad, Sarajevo
Reinterpretations – Promoting Cultural Heritage Through Design
The exhibition “Promoting Cultural Heritage Through Design” is grounded in a contemporary understanding of cultural heritage as a dynamic, multilayered, and interpretatively open category, whose meaning does not arise solely from form or ornamentation, but from the context, processes, and relationships it establishes within the contemporary cultural sphere. In this sense, design is not viewed merely as a carrier of aesthetic values, but as an active medium of cultural interpretation, capable of articulating identity, memory, and continuity through a contemporary visual and material language.
The exhibition encompasses a wide range of media — from graphic and industrial design, illustration, and typography, to textiles, jewelry, and spatial interventions — highlighting the diversity of contemporary approaches to working with both the material and immaterial aspects of cultural heritage. At the same time, the exhibition reflects the problems and challenges of contemporary design in Bosnia and Herzegovina; it suggests the pressure and complexity of the social, cultural, and institutional circumstances that shape the creative field, without diminishing or embellishing them. It opens them up to reinterpretation — for us and for those who come after us.
The thematic units are conceived as interconnected narratives that explore motifs, processes, materiality, and the spatial manifestations of heritage, as well as its visual and communicative potential in a contemporary context. Through these units, the continuity of craft knowledge is emphasized, along with the importance of materials as carriers of cultural memory, and the capacity of design to translate traditional elements into new, functional, and conceptually relevant forms.
Ultimately, the exhibition affirms design as a relevant actor within contemporary cultural and social processes, positioning it as a space of encounter between past and present. The presented works do not offer a nostalgic view of tradition, but rather regard it as a resource for reflecting on contemporary identity and future possibilities of cultural expression. Through the dialogue of different authorial approaches, the exhibition opens space for a new reading of cultural heritage. Following this logic, it also raises the question of our (collective and personal) relationship to heritage: how do we understand it, translate it, and live it in the present moment?Elma Fišić, art historian and curator of the exhibition
“Three Witnesses” – The medieval tombstones of Bosnia and the neighboring regions are decorated with reliefs and inscriptions written in Bosančica. The stones called Stećci bear witness to the life and identity of the people of that time, while Bosančica represents a bridge between medieval culture and literacy.
The work “Three Witnesses” unites these two key elements of medieval identity: the stećak and Bosančica, stone and script, the photograph by Pavle Kovač and the Bosančica typography by Goran Čuljak. The combination of analog photography and a modernly designed Bosančica font, used for the epitaph “I was, I lived, and I bear witness,” simply connects history with modern technical (re)construction and, in doing so, seeks to contribute to the preservation of our cultural heritage.Pavle Kovač, author
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Recognition (Dec 2025 / Jan 2026)
58th Days of BiH photography, Banja Luka, Dec 2025 / Jan 2026
Photographic Association of Bosnia and Herzegovina (AUFBIH) in 58th edition of the exhibition Fotography in Bosnia and Herzegovina awarded the title First Class Photographer of Photographic Association of Bosnia and Herzegovina and 3rd place in Selection of the most successful Authors in 2024
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Solo exhibition Dubrovnik 40 years later (Dec 2025)
12th to 23rd od December 2025, Collegium Artisticum, Sarajevo
ABOUT OUR CITY
One of humanity’s most enduring obsessions is the passage of time. Nothing unsettles us quite like the awareness of our own impermanence and transience. How long will we last? When will we end? And is it really true that so little will remain after us? Regardless of our sighs, time continues to flow relentlessly, while we stand thoughtfully on the shore, waiting for the current to carry us away. And yet, throughout all the time in the world, we stubbornly attempt to compress it into our human frameworks. When the natural cannot fit into molds made of such perishable human material, we marvel at the disproportion — and keep marveling. For example, the fact that we cannot see with the naked eye that stone, too, ages does not mean that it does not happen. One day, it too will return to dust. Man and stone — it sounds somewhat unusual, yet appealing, like a kind of counterpoint on transience.
Dubrovnik, and especially its Old Town, are examples of such fantastic endurance in stone, something that has always attracted and bewildered people. How old it is — patinated and polished — yet at the same time mysteriously young in its radiance. So long-lived — enough to make one perish of human envy. Dubrovnik. As if it were more than a city, more than its buildings and the layers of history that, like mythical foundations, have held it upright for centuries. But of course, the city’s name is a linguistic illusion, for it would be a shell without content. It is precisely such special substance that Nikola Kovač writes about in his concise travelogue. One immediately notices that the writer is captivated by Dubrovnik’s Mediterranean character — both because of its de facto belonging to a great civilizational circle and as proof of his own rootedness. Let it be clear at once: Nikola writes about a place that we — at least those of us from the same geographical, Herzegovinian stock — also feel to be our city. Just as the Mediterranean cannot be halted by borders and barriers, intimate belonging is not subject to customs control.
At the thematic center of the travelogue lies the well-known and here well-described impression of temporal and historical “confusion” that overwhelms us upon arriving in Dubrovnik. It is as if we are witnessing a collision between the scenery of immediate reality on one side and long historical duration on the other, so that the glorious past often seems more vivid than the present. Sparks fly from this collision, and perhaps that is why this special city flickers in our memory, and why we return to it. Nabokov says — to paraphrase — that drama resides in language; it dictates the rhythm and meaning of a manuscript. In this case, in connection with such a subtext, Professor and gentleman Nikola Kovač not only describes his broader homeland, but passionately reflects himself within it. This refers, of course, to spiritual nobility and refinement — the kind that can only be earned through character and deeds. Such qualities have always been the rarest, and thus, like precious metal, especially valued. Not everywhere, and not by everyone — just as Dubrovnik is not for everyone. And those times in which such refinement is pushed aside by different values perhaps reveal the most about themselves.
A particular reverence for the city’s beauty also radiates from Nikola’s travelogue, weaving between the words and wrapping around them like ivy. And in that ivy-like way, it clings and adheres to the stone walls, remaining permanently as a record inseparable from its subject. Perhaps it is best that none of these moral weights are explicitly named, but are instead, through literary skill, transformed into images of thought and their reflections. As we read them, Kovač’s words are wondrously, epigraphically inscribed into our memory:
“Archaeology is not only a ‘religion of atheists,’ but also a means of establishing the truth about the strength of faith and the durability of the creations of the human mind and hand. Senseless theories about origin and ethnogenesis are here replaced by fascination with the achievements of generations who respected laws and symbols whose principles and beauty we accept as the attainments of modern humanism.”
And then Pavle, Nikola’s son, comes forth and reveals that he, too, has for years been recording all this with his camera, in his opus titled “The City, 40 Years Later.” Not by chance, need it even be said. It is a peculiar feeling to pass through these photographs; one has the impression they belong to some collective album of ours. In truth, they seem “familiar from before” because, like true art, they are above all grounded in human experience. Another proof that nothing in the creative process can truly be invented — it can only be drawn from the archives of memory, which are often older than our individual lives. Looking at these photographs several times, it seemed to me — and perhaps this is a bit of mischievous fancy — as though Henri Cartier-Bresson or André Kertész had personally resurrected in Dubrovnik to click the shutter a few times. And so, for forty years.
In his photographic homage, Pavle Kovač presents, among other things, frames of the Old Town from 1984 and then the very same scenes photographed again in 2024, forty years later. And what is the first impression when one sees this comparative display? Ah, man! Dubrovnik has not aged at all — on the contrary, it is even more beautiful. And of course we, as mere mortals, are jealous of that; forty years is immense for a human being, while some cities boast for centuries. The fact that the light in these photographs is, in a particular way, both omnipresent and subtle has to do with the author’s motivation, his secret, which he reveals to us only partially. As it should be — because then each of us completes it for ourselves.
Just as Nikola’s travelogue, as already said, cannot be separated from Dubrovnik, so Pavle’s “City” appears as an integral part of a larger whole. And together, in an intimate embrace, they speak of love, respect, nostalgia, and honor. And perhaps this last is also the first in that sequence.Namik Kabil, writer and film director
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Collective exhibition 6th of April
4th to 25th of April 2025, Collegium Artisticum, Sarajevo
On the occasion of 6th April, the Day of the City of Sarajevo, the traditional annual exhibition “Collegium Artisticum 2025” will open tonight (4th of April 2025) at 7:00 PM at the iconic city gallery “Collegium Artisticum.”
This is a collective exhibition featuring members of three professional associations: Association of Fine Artists of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ULUBIH), Association of Applied Artists and Designers of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ULUPUBIH) and Association of Architects of Bosnia and Herzegovina (AABH).
During the exhibition opening, annual awards and recognitions from the three professional associations will also be presented.
The tradition of this 6th April gathering of artists dates back to 1975, when the exhibition “Collegium Artisticum 1975” inaugurated the current exhibition space of the gallery bearing the same name.
The entire event holds undeniable prestige and is of special significance to the City. Since its inception, it has fostered unity and preserved the memory of the progressive intellectual and artistic movement that marked the cultural life of our community in the late 1930s.
At this year’s exhibition, the 46th edition, more than two hundred works by Bosnian and Herzegovinian artists, designers, and architects will be presented. At the opening ceremony, awards and recognitions for the best achievements will be presented in accordance with the decisions of the associations’ expert juries.
The public will have the opportunity to gain insight into a broad spectrum of creative reflections, research, aspirations, and achievements in the fields of fine and applied arts, design, and architecture. The exhibition includes works in graphic, product, and fashion design, scenography, costume design, artistic photography, interior design, ceramics, illustration, artistic metalwork, textiles and other materials, as well as works in drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, installation, performance, video art, and more.
The exhibition will remain open to the public until April 25, 2025, Monday through Friday, from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM.Text source: www.federalna.ba
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Leica Tour (June 2025)
June 2025 Paris, September 2025 Bordeaux, November 2025 Lyon, April 2026. Marseille
This photograph was selected for the participation in Leica Tour 2025 around the theme « Perspectives singulières ». Photo will be exposed in Palais de Tokyo in Paris and then in Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille et Lille.
Paris, Palais de Tokyo, 14 et 15 June 2025,
Bordeaux, locaux de Panajou, 20 Sept 2025
Lyon, Galerie Masurel, 22 Nov 2025
Marseille, 41 Rue Montgrand, 4 Apr 2026
Lille 2026 -
Solo exhibition Colors of Asia (Dec 2024)
17th of Dec 2024 in Museum of Herzegovina, Trebinje
East of the End
When Pavle Kovač’s Asian photo cycle appeared before my eyes, I felt a profound unease. I did not merely look at the photographs — I stared into them, utterly captivated. As someone whose eye has long grown accustomed to dramatic and striking visual sen-sations, I knew that this captivation had not been sparked by Kovač’s virtuoso technique; it was rising from somewhere deep within my being. And then I remembered a long-ago read cosmogonic poem by Panuta Bantang and its lines:
only colors and dreams are distributed justly and undeservedly.
That recollection explained my unease. By offering my eye the wonder of colors — which, with each new glance, bring beings and spaces within the photographs to life in a different way — Kovač subtly and slyly led me into the realm of dreams, for which I am endlessly grateful.
Someone hasty might claim that there is little or nothing dreamlike in these photo-graphs, since Kovač’s lens mercilessly seizes reality each time, refusing to let it hide be-hind haze or optical distortions. That realism, however, is only an appearance, a superfi-cial attribution. The dreamlike quality of this cycle is born of angles and the relationships between them — the angle from which the artist observes the world and its beings, the angle from which those beings position themselves in relation to the world, and the angle from which the viewer approaches.
The labyrinth built by these angles is inhabited by intuitions and premonitions; through its corridors pass visions that will seem confusingly close and familiar to the viewer, pro-vocatively urging reflection. Although I have never visited Asia, especially not the distant East, these photographs awakened in me a kind of déjà vu — unsettling at first, later in-creasingly pleasant. And then it dawned on me — intuitions are shared by humankind, or at least connected by a common source. And precisely because our intuitions are sha-red, our experiences are similar, mutually intelligible, and complementary.
The question of experience is the key to understanding this Kovač cycle, in which, be-neath the already mentioned virtuosity, the artist opens — more within the realm of intui-tion than philosophical contemplation — the question of the relationship between the experience of the artist, the experience of the being who is not merely the object of ar-tistic creation but also a participant in the process, and the experience of the viewer who, though arriving afterward, also participates in the creative act. The collision of these three experiences illuminates the paths toward understanding the ontology of the world and the way the experience of the world participates in grasping its ontology.
Unlike the Occident, where life becomes an urban and thus state phenomenon — even when rural — and where life retreats before thought, not the thought that trembles with primordial philosophical wonder, but the utilitarian, therefore hierarchical and dehuma-nized one, in the Orient life still knows that it must first and foremost be lived. And to be lived, it requires both strength and gentleness, both thought and dream. Naturally, it also requires color, for without the colors of the world, there is no life within it.
Kovač clearly understands the distant Orient, and the proof of that understanding lies in his approach — devoid of exoticization and of any a priori imposed aestheticization as an ideological procedure. Instead, he approaches it as we ought to approach ourselves — as fact, but also as intuition. He approaches it as an equal, knowing that any other approach would be mistaken and lead astray. Thus Kovač creates not only a precious and sump-tuous visual document and a wondrous travelogue, but also a genuine work of art from which, like a tiger from the jungle, new dramatic and essential philosophical and poetic questions constantly leap at the viewer — along with those long-posed questions such as Gauguin’s D’où venons-nous? Qui sommes-nous? Où allons-nous?
The profoundly honest and reciprocal relationship that Kovač builds with the Orient through his lens is graciously rewarded by a work that does not impose upon the viewer an obligation of interpretation within preordained expectations. Faced with a photo-graph of a European fisherman, a European viewer will almost inevitably drift into exis-tentialist or even vulgar political reflections, believing this fulfills a duty of intellectual engagement.
Kovač’s photograph of an Asian fisherman, through technical mastery and poetic fra-ming, offers colors from which one can sense the smell of the caught fish, the rocking of the boat on the water, even the fisherman’s breath. That breath does not have the po-wer to provide answers about the fisherman’s life, but it is powerful enough to remind us that wherever there is breath, there must also be a dream. If we understand that this dream might also be ours — if the breath and gaze of the Asian fisherman or child re-mind us of the existence of our own breath and our own gaze as the only authentic proofs of our living — we will know why it was worth embarking on Kovač’s Asian adven-ture.
I conclude this text with the confession that I am still taken aback and bewildered by the intensity of sensations and the countless associations this photographic cycle has awake-ned in me. That confession is necessary so that I may also admit that I am no longer cer-tain whether I truly once read the aforementioned poem by Panuta Bantang — or whe-ther it too was merely one of the visions that appeared to me within Pavle Kovač’s won-drous Asian labyrinth.Elis Bektaš
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Award (Avr / May 2024)
Rush hour
The best street life photo at 7th International Digital Exhibition Vision 2024 in Finland -
Award (Dec 2023)
56th Days of BiH photography, Banja Luka, Dec 2023
Photographic Association of Bosnia and Herzegovina (AUFBIH) in 56th edition of the exhibition Fotography in Bosnia and Herzegovina awarded the photograph "At school 1" ("U medresi") as the Best photo on Foto BiH exhibitions in 2023
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Solo exhibition Short stories from Indonesia (Dec 2023)
15th of Dec 2023 in Cultural Center, Trebinje
FOTOGRAFIJA KAO EGZOTIČNI PUTOPIS
Da je Pavle Kovač živio u vrijeme Evlije Čelebije, kada foto aparat još nije bio ni u povoju, sigurno bi bio putopisac i svoje impresije sa dalekih putovanja, kao i on, zapisivao na hartiju. S obzirom da nije tako, autor izložbe nam svoje utiske sa egzotičnog istoka, gdje se našao kao mašinski inženjer, iznosi kroz fotografije rađene u njemu omiljenoj crno-bijeloj tehnici.
Posmatranje samo jedne od njih predstavlja svojevrstan kratak izlet, a razgledanje čitave izložbe graniči sa uzbudljivim putovanjem kroz daleke i za nas bajkovite istočnjačke predjele, uz suočavanje sa ljudima drugačijih životnih navika, delanja, kulture i religije. Na ovakvo putovanje bi se isplatilo poći i sa nekim fotografskim amaterom, ali ono što nam nudi Pavlov foto-objektiv predstavlja mnogo više i od profesionalne fotografske ponude. Radi se o sposobnosti ovjekovječenja onih najesencijalnijih momenata koji daju pečat prostoru i vremenu, približavajući tako ambijentalnu specifičnost do skoro stvarnog doživljaja. A tako nešto mogu nam priuštiti samo ljudi sa urođenim instinktom i umjetničkim pogledom na fotografiju i njen nastanak.
Kakva je, na primjer, koincidencija bila potrebna, da se fotograf nađe u islamskom vjerskom objektu, među više stotina identično odjevenih vjernica, zatečenih u istoj molitvenoj pozi pa da se samo za treptaj oka jedna od njih okrene i omogući jedinstvenu fotografiju u kojoj možemo beskrajno dugo da uživamo. Koincidencija više fizičkih i tehničkih faktora –neizbježno, ali instinkta i magije autora – svakako.
Pavlove „slike“ imaju neku magnetsku privlačnost, ne dozvoljavaju da se napuste i traže ponovno vraćanje k njima i gledanje, kao što nas predjeli sa nekog stvarnog putovanja ponovo vuku prema sebi. Te fotografije, poslije primarne spoznaje osnovnog objekta, neumitno produbljuju naše interesovanje prema širem kontekstu, tako da ćemo sigurno ubrzo poželjeti da pored sebe imamo i geografski atlas, knjigu iz istorije, ili biologije.
Kada napustimo izložbu, što bi predstavljalo i vraćanje sa putovanja kući, ostajemo ganuti, u nekom drugom svijetu, sa osjećajem sličnim onom koji nas obuzme poslije dobre pozorišne predstave.Dr sc. med. Dragan Kovač
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Award (2022)
French PHOTO magazine #554, laureate for urban landscape
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Sales exhibition (Oct 2016)
27th Oct to 1st Nov 2016, Paris
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Sales exhibition (May 2016)
30th to 31st May 2016, Paris
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Award (2014)
French PHOTO magazine and association Enfants du Mékong, "Enfance et Joie", 2nd place awarded by Sabine Weiss
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Award (Dec 2007 / Jan 2008)
French PHOTO magazine #446, 1st price in category " Le Voyage", selection by Olympus France for travel photography
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Award (Dec 2007)
GOLD AWARD DIGITAL PRINTING ELECTROGRAPHIC/ LASER, 5TH ASIAN PRINT AWARDS 2007
BEST USE OF THE DIGITAL PRINTING PROCESS FUJI XEROX PLATINUM SPONSOR AWARD, 5TH ASIAN PRINT AWARDS 2007
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Book publication (June 2007)
Colors of Asia book was published by HEXART in Jakarta.
La collection de photographies sous le nom Couleurs d'Asie essaie de transmettre l'atmosphère et la lumière du Sud-Est asiatique à travers quelques sujets très caractéristiques de cette région. Entre les paysages et les scènes de la vie quotidienne, en passant par des détails typiques et des portraits des gens ordinaires, le seul dénominateur commun à toutes ces photographies reste la couleur - saturée et explosive, vive et étrange, souvent à la limite du kitsch asiatique.
Ce livre, résultat de différents voyages en Indonésie, Vietnam, Cambodge et Myanmar entre 2002 et 2006, est une sélection d’une centaine de photographies, dont une cinquantaine qui ont été exposées à Sarajevo en novembre 2006. Pour mieux présenter les similitudes de ces pays asiatiques, les photographies sont juxtaposées par le sujet, la couleur, la composition ou, simplement, par l'ambiance. Les photographies en double page assurent une transition entre différents sujets et sont, parfois, elles-mêmes, présentées en pair avec la double page suivante. En feuilletant ce livre, vous êtes invités à trouver ces liaisons et à connecter les thèmes par vos propres interprétations.
J’espère que les différents chapitres de ce livre seront pour vous un billet de voyage imaginaire et une invitation à la découverte de la magie du Sud-Est asiatique.
Bon voyage...
Pavle Kovac
Jakarta, 2007. -
Solo exhibition Colors of Asia (May 2007)
21st of May, Duta Fine Arts Foundation, Jakarta
COULEURS D’ASIE
L’oeil du photographe est avant tout un regard qui transperce la lumière, pour la laisser vibrante dans cette folle lutte contre l’évanescence. Les couleurs doivent sortir du cadre pour miroiter encore quand nous fermons les yeux.
La lumière ainsi ne s’éteint pas, elle reste vivante dans cette offrande à la vie, plus puissante qu’un simple souvenir attendri d’un voyage où l’on oublie parfois de s’attarder en voulant trop tout voir, trop vite.
Des quatre pays qu’il nous est donné de découvrir dans ces images ce sont moins les différences que les similitudes qui affleurent, couleurs du sud-est asiatique sombres ou chatoyantes. Les mêmes yeux brillants des enfants, mêmes mains usées par le travail du repiquage du riz, les différences nous donnent à voir autant que les ressemblances.
S’il nous fallait un fil rouge ce serait celui du bonheur, bonheur malgré les peurs, la souffrance, la misère d’hier ou d’aujourd’hui, bonheur des enfants devant une bulle de savon, bonheur des femmes dont on devine le babillage même si les épaules sont trop lourdes de paniers qui laissent les dos tremblants. Bonheur de voir le soleil se lever et s’éteindre dans la course du temps, nous offrant des aubes et des crépuscules comme des offrandes.
Le travail de Pavle Kovac nous invite au voyage mais plus encore à l’initiation.
C’est à l’oeil d’apprendre, par ce jeu des couleurs, que d’Indonésie, du Cambodge, du Myanmar ou du Viêt-Nam l’homme est partout le même; même si les couleurs le transforment et le changent c’est un seul même livre qui est à jamais ouvert devant nous.Des maisons écrasées par la lèpre humide de ses saisons sans fin, qui laissent aux graines le temps de lézarder un peu plus ces façades, aux yeux des morts des falaises du pays Toraja qui, gardiens des lignées, nous laisse comme un regret de ce qu’il y a derrière. Pierres et murs sont habités, d’esprits rieurs ou malfaisants, lavées par les larmes et les vents, les seuils des portes sont ouverts pour que l’enfant qui joue, l’oiseau qui siffle y trouve le refuge de sa fatigue.
Eau trouble ou scintillante en écume des vagues, claquant dans les filets ou sur les coques de ces embarcations Lourdes ou fragiles, l’homme partout se bat pour ramener sa pêche. Plages de paradis mais typhons mugissants la nature comme un écrin travaillé par les pieds et les mains, voilà aussi l’Asie créatrice de paysages, vallée de théiers et cascades mugissantes des rizières de Bali à l’Annam, le vert éclaire ces pays autant qu’il les nourrit.
C’est le bruit de l’eau qu’on devine, à la douce fraîcheur de l’aubergine tout est aussi saveurs et senteurs à deviner derrière l’ombre des étals, dans le recoin des temples, dans la poussière des façades de pierres, tête de Kala ou sourire du Bouddha le silence hurle plus fort encore dans la chaleur.
Mais laissons nous glisser, suivons les fleuves et les routes, le chien errant, l’oiseau chanteur, l’enfant malicieux pour entrer dans les pays qu’ a traversé pour nous l’objectif du photographe, Bon voyage!
Sandrine Pic
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Solo exhibition Colors of Asia (Nov 2006)
6th to 12th Nov 2006 in Museum of Literature and Theater Arts, Sarajevo
BOJE SU U NAMA, I TAMO GDJE JE PAVLE KOVAČ
Neko vrlo važan za artikulaciju misaonih procesa i duhovnih trendova 20. stoljeća, u ovom slučaju Walter Benjamin, jednom je tačno primijetio da analfabet budućeg vremena neće biti onaj ko ne zna pismo, nego onaj ko se ne razumije u fotografiju. Potpisnik ovoga teksta se ne misli lažno predstavljati u tom smislu, ali je prirodom profesije više od pola života bio okružen nekolicinom velikih majstora fotografije, pa ga je valjda i stoga, zapala ova dužnost i čast. S druge strane, više je od pola života, s pauzama, “okružen” i vještinama i pojavom autora fotografija, tako da se sasvim prirodno nametnuo izbor lica koje ima nešto napisati o seriji, odnosno izložbi fotografija Pavla Kovača.
Ne bez straha pristupio sam ovim fotografijama koje prikazuju svijet Dalekog istoka, i ne bez veselja konstatujem da je poslijeratna bosanskohercegovačka scena – dokazano jedna od najboljih u široj regiji, a objektivno procvjetala u ratnim i godinama ranog poraća – dobila još jedno ime koje valja upamtiti. Pavle Kovač je dugo čekajući uvjete, vrijeme i mogućnost da ostvari što je zamislio, u sebi nosio jedan nesvakidašnji koncept za našu sredinu, koncept koji sam surađujući s njim, od naših fotografa osjetio, valjda, još samo kod Dejana Vekića, i prema osobnom sudu, najvećeg među velikima – Milomira Kovačevića – Strašnog.Radi se o, uvjetno rečeno, principu koji dokumentira kompozicijom, svjetlom ili bojama, koji, dakle, zadovoljava osnovne klasične kriterije ocjenjivanja fotografija, ali kao zaseban rad govori i nešto više, Prvenstveno o doživljaju autora prema onome što slika. Ono što mi se osobno čini najvažnijim u ovim fotografijama je to što one nude komparativ sa slikama koje nosite u sebi. Analogno Beuyceovom principu da je “svaki čovjek umjetnik”, u današnjem vremenu bi se mogla postaviti maksima da je “svaki čovjek fotograf.” Ta stvar je na fizičkom nivou više nego očigledna. Na raznim destinacijama od Jave do Jamajke i od Aljaske do Tokija rijeke ljudi s fotografskim aparatima pokušavaju pribilježiti trenutke vlastitih života ili kolektivne svijesti – ovisno o željama, zadacima, ambicijama i obimu onoga što okom i objektivom mogu zahvatiti - i nije ni čudo da smo u ovom trenutku kao civilizacija toliko ovisni o fotografiji. Tim više su ove fotografije vrijedne: urađene tehnikom koja sve više uzmiče one su, u neku ruku, svjedočanstvo prošloga, ali i prozor u to da je danas ipak moguće promišljati i realizirati zahtjevan koncept približavanja svijeta o kojem se kod nas zna malo ili ništa. Tako autorova inspiracija postaje i inspiracija onome ko gleda njegov rad, i u tome se ogleda ona interakcija koju tražimo kod, valjda, svakog umjetničkog djela. Apsolutni protok ideje, reklo bi se.
Bilo da prikazuje portrete azijskih žena čija lica govore o nikada dovoljno izrečenim ili ispisanim tajnama Istoka, bilo da pokazuje magično jutro nad plantažama čaja, plažu u Vijetnamu koju znamo kao ratni toponim, fascinantne šare na rukotvorinama, ili tržnicu na džunkama, slike Kambodže, lica Indonezije, Kovač to čini predanošću sakupljača koji, da opet citiramo Benjamina, “obnavlja stari svijet što je najdublja želja sakupljača kad osjeti poriv da nabavlja nove stvari.” Stoga, ne treba se truditi pa pod svaku cijenu pokušati doznati zašto je Kovač izabrao baš ove slike, i koliko su one nastajale.Nema nikakve sumnje da je misao o njima pažljivo odgajana u mračnim komorama sarajevskog foto-kluba, u Steleksu, u Parizu, na bušotinama u Indijskom oceanu, svugdje gdje je Pavla nosila njegova tako neobična, a opet tako zakonomjerna biografija kad smo u pitanju mi rođeni na kraju šezdesetim u gradu koji se zove Sarajevo i koji je za našeg “vakta” i “zemana”, promijenio dvije države i jedan rat, i osjetio svu neprirodnost pogrešnog kodiranja religijskih i kulturnih različitosti koje svi mi nosimo u sebi. Iskustvo nekog s velikim tehničkim znanjem se stopilo sa iskustvom promatrača, jer nikakva tehnika ne pomaže ako oko i prst nemaju simbiozu koja na kraju rezultira projekcijom. Drugim riječima, ako ne postoji talent.
Stoga me nimalo nije začudilo kad je Kovač izvadio svoj album, ili barem dio njega: naviknut na takva iznenađenja opet prirodom posla, a opet i u konkretnom slučaju, znao sam da on negdje tamo pored svojih projekata, nacrta električne gitare koju će, nemojte sumnjati, jednom samo donijeti i pitati vas šta mislite o njegovom novom hobiju, ili zatezanja struna na gudalu – radi još nešto. To “nešto” su ove sjajne fotografije, i nema druge nego poželjeti da nas još koji put iznenadi. Fotografijama, ili ljudski, kako samo on to zna. Svejedno, sudbina takvih ljudi koje često zovemo renesansnima zbog mnoštva talenata koje imaju, se nikada cijela, u svojoj raskoši i punini, i svemu što one sobom nose, pa i sjenkama, ne pokaže u trenutku njenog trajanja.To je nešto što predstavlja trajnu vrijednost, što će, nadam se, biti slučaj i sa ovim fotografijama. Ne vidim objektivan razlog da nas Pavle Kovač i dalje ne nastavi iznenađivati jer kao što kaže jedan hit iz naše mladosti – “Boje su u nama.” Još uvijek postoje ljudi koji ih mogu vidjeti i tako majstorski zabilježiti. Boje su, dakle, uvijek negdje tamo gdje su Pavle Kovač i njegov objektiv.Ahmed Burić
Sarajevo, 5. 10. 2006.