My Hat & Zagreb Street Art Photography
(Draženka Jalšić Ernečić, senior curator)
Janko Belaj with “My Hat” photo essay focused his work on the conceptual issues of the existentialism in the black and white street art photography. Belaj had been a graphic designer, commercial and documentary photographer in Zagreb for nearly two decades when he discovered his ‘secret’ street art photography as his parallel photographic lifestyle. During the process, Belaj probably did not have the fine street art conceptual photography on his mind at first. His photographs stood out for their composition, decisive moments, dramatic light and layering. After a while, when his white hat became usual protagonist on every film he captured, some personal idea starts to become the conceptual photographic story. The Hat as an object of his fine art photography became a storyteller. Between 2011 and 2015 with the tendency to be continued, Belaj focused his mind on the deepest personal observations and aesthetic issues that are fundamental in a way that photographer take a stand and becomes invisible and unimportant.
“My Hat” as the conceptual projects is focused on the photo story of the everyday life in the Croatian capital. It is a photo essay of the existence and coexistence of the urban culture and subculture. The Hat from the photo essay ”My Hat” is a storyteller with the human qualities, an item that captures moments and moods of his owner. Photographer’s hat became the medium with the presence of the personal recollection and awareness of the time passing by. Janko Belaj did find his personal memory pattern of nearest past and put the story of his life on the conceptual level. ‘The Hat’ became his alter ego with the strong artistic statement in street art urban photography. Belaj creating the impression of a parallel flow of the time with his composition focused on the hat as an object in the first plan, the full lens aperture, and deep linear breaks down of the subject in the background. Occasional escapes in nature and landscapes are bonds with other fields of his artistic interests. Objectivity reveals the pattern of the social behavior and urban life on the streets of Zagreb. The object of interest is a common personal item, the Hat used by photographer himself, with the tendency of the lens out his daily migration from the suburb to downtown, the greenmarkets, wineries, local pubs, and clubs, or weekend escapes in nature and open green landscapes. There are astonishing scenes of the sidewalks, streets, and avenues, nameless and main squares that anticipated some historical scenes and stories of the past times, anticipated even the Croatian movies, literature and new urban legends as its personal memory database.
The main thing I like it about “The Hat” is that Janko Belaj put his emphasis on namelessness that it has the value of blogging, texting, and notes of urban poetry and subculture. In his commitment to finding the answer to the existence and existentialism as an answer how we can do spend our living in a positive way to find the happiness and peace in our lives, creates a powerful fine art conceptual photography that reminds us that time passing by and beauty of life is all around us. He did find out the conceptual connection of his personal memories and the lifetime passing by on the streets of Zagreb.