790 years / Požega in the Eye
(Maja Žebčević Matić for the exhibition catalogue)
790 years from the first mention in writing of a city isn’t only the past time measured in years. It is also out time, which makes us think, makes us question out own identity. A time for collecting the harvest of our past and the past of the city, plans for joint future. Time for the exhibition Požega in the eye.
Why Janko Belaj?
In the past, Požega was either lauded by its literati, like by Tomić, or scolded, like by Korajec, but, in any case, no one was ever indifferent towards it. Devoid of emotions.
On the social network, we daily come across newly discovered professional and amateur photographic material about Požega, people who love this city and who are (un)consciously subjectively connected with it in any way. This is the reason why for this mission of questioning of Požega, the Požega City Museum has invited a person who does not know this city, so towards it he can only be - objective. Janko Belaj in his relationship towards the heritage has the educational branding of his parents: the mother the eminent Croatian art historian and the father, famous Croatian ethnologist. Janko Belaj perceives photography as a process which he has been learning since the childhood and which he will continue studying, as a reason for gathering the similar-minded photo fanatics, as a medium for the self-expression. Janko Belaj simply breathes photography. This trait of his was a challenge for a social experiment of attempting to discover a previously unknown city, with the aim of showing how we, as participants of almost eight centuries of written history of the city, walk its streets almost daily, indifferent and without thinking.
Belaj’s task was far from the project which the visiting photographer Milan Pavić was tasked with in 1977, for the occasion of 750 years the first written mention of Požega. While Milan Pavić systematically documented Požega and its surroundings on 1320 negatives, which are kept at the Požega’s City Museum, as guided by the themes which corresponded to the special Monograph of the city, Janko Belaj was tasked with discovering the places himself, guessing at their importance for the people who lived here through the history, including us.
Thus, we become aware of the scenic city visuals, historical architecture as cultural totality or its details separated in the photographic frame which show us their microcosms, only through Belaj’s mighty photo lens. The same goes for the backyards, staircases and hallways in the city centre, which most of us discovered only after being guided by the author.
However, Belaj consciously abandons his role of our guide through Požega, which he leaves to real guides, witnesses of Požega’s literacy, Rudinske heads, Romanic figureheads from the stone consoles of Benedictine cloister church of St. Michael of Rudine from the 12th century. Despite their world renown stone expressiveness, they are inconspicuous. Although positioned in the forefront, they are at the edges of the frame. Although mute, they call out attention to the beauty and the importance of the scene behind them. With a little imagination, we can hear the story justifying their (Janko’s) choice.
Since Belaj handles all photographic techniques with unimaginable ease, we honoured his wish to use two completely different techniques for the project. While one, a primitive camera obscura, a precursor of all photographic cameras is actually a simple wooden light-tight box into which light enters through a tiny hole smaller than a tip of a pin for a very long exposure, the other has a modern wideangle tilt-shift lens which is able to achieve all photographer’s ideas. In the end, wishing to have living people in our photographs of Požega, for the exhibition we have chosen only digital photos, because, due to long exposure times, the camera obscura has recorded our city without movement.
Following Janko’s portfolio of a heroic landscapist (Srca Istre, Svjetlopisi, Svjetlopisi drugi), conceptualist (Moj klobuk, Iće i piće), existentialist (Samoubojiti Kosturko), with this exhibition we have given him a task worthy of his reputation of an excellent photographer.
And we have nothing else to do but to be excellent viewers. With Požega in the eye.