Ljubodrag Andric’s images can be accessed via their immediately assertive visual quality Yet it is their finer details that invite the eye to linger. It is impossible to walk quickly past these walls. You are hooked by the variations in texture. Your interest is piqued by architectural elements and the interplay of symmetries and geometry, which repay deeper contemplation. Once our gaze has slowed, the image becomes more abstract. The light emanating from it directs the eye to the colours. Thus while we are physically engaged in this confrontation – the scale of the photographs has something to do with it – the architectural space gives way to a mental space. The objective reality of the wall eludes us and makes way for imagination. The surface of these walls may be opaque, yet it suddenly opens up into what we could call a meditative space. Ljubodrag Andric’s work has closer links to the history of painting than of photography. The artist photographs walls in different cities around the world (Beijing, Los Angeles, Miami, Montreal…), yet this is not what we remember from his works, which are devoid of any human presence or information about their environment. It is not the buildings that caught the photographer’s attention but the light playing on the walls. The care taken over the shot, and the preparation for printing, are crucial steps. It is his absolute mastery of his tools that enables Andric to catch the viewer’s eye. He always takes meticulous care to keep an element of reality in his images; he never tips over into pure abstraction.
Nathalie Herschdorfer
Nathalie Herschdorfer is a writer, historian of photography and director of the Museum of Fine Arts in Le Locle, Switzerland.
Ljubodrag Andric, Murs
From February 19 to May 28, 2017
MBAL Musée des beaux-arts Le Locle
Rue Marie-Anne-Calame 6
2400 Le Locle
Switzerland
