VLADIMÍR BIRGUS

Since initially photo appeared as a monochrome image, perception of its perfect multicoloured nature is, as a matter of principle, tainted when it comes to its authenticity. However, authenticity of reflection of this medium represents only a surface layer of photographic image, and monochrome, i.e. black-and-white, and richly coloured photos are equally unreal and equally shifted from the world as perceived and comprehended by the senses we are equipped with. Hence, discussions on the topic of black-and-white photography, colour photography, and, more recently, digital photography, simply make no sense since this medium is only peripherally connected with reality contained on photos: photos represent a self-referential reality.

Sometimes specific guidelines are necessary in order to understand photographic image. Its “documentary” nature is a colloquial expression used to simplify primary communication, but it also deprives the image of its metaphoric, poetic and semantic context. This seems to be the case with Vladimir Birgus (1954) whose rich opus frequently linked with the tradition of the so-called “documentary” photography challenges, in truth, any thematic categorisation of photographic image into “documentary”, “fashion”, “landscape” or any other similar subclass.

Brought up on the exceptional tradition of the 20th century Czech photography, Birgus started developing his unique style of subjective documentary photography already in the early stages of his career from the first half of the 1970s, if the category of documentary is suitable enough to include his visible sarcasm and irony by which he has been recording reality around him. Even today, Birgus has not changed his “style”. However, style does not imply sharp vision and sensible soul. Style emerges out of his personal standpoint and a special connection he acquires to record scenes and details which only by their textual markers of their titles on purely linguistic level “document” Miami Beach, Berlin, Moscow, Rovinj, Paris, New York or Otterlo.

Birgus’s photographic images are made of carefully structured details the bizarreness of which is only peripherally connected with geography. One could say that Birgus is a photographer who is more of a “place-measurer”, a topographer who maybe does not measure and record individual areas in order to functionally present them on a map or plan, but rather gives his creative contribution to better and deeper understanding of “topos”. This is exactly the manner in which Birgus creates his travelling “documentary” opus which fascinates owing to its unreal reality. Colour that Birgus has been increasingly using for the past twenty years makes it clear that the medium of photography has surpassed its limited documentary potential a long time ago and that it has become means of enriching our overwhelming visual culture. Notwithstanding specific attractiveness of photogenic quality of reality, its perception and experience occur on mental, i.e. spiritual level. Detecting its unreality and grasping its dimensions outside the boundaries of physical existence is where the true reality of Birgus’s photographic images lies.

Prof. Želimir Koščević
Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb

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