The architectural structures of the 1960s and 1970s , a manifestation of large-scale utopic object built almost entirely of concrete, have inspired Austrian photographer Bruno Klomfar to create the PAST FUTURE series. An adventure and exploration of an age then oriented toward the future, now stealing away from the past. His travels take him to cities like Berlin, Hamburg, Bratislava, Brussels, Paris, Milan, London and Zurich, where he not only follows the icons of architectural history but also take interest in emblematic buildings threatened with destruction due to omissions in the architectural heritage preservation acts. Projecting “past future” onto the present state of those architectural sites and the functions that they perform allows various layers of time to coexist complexly intertwined.
The photographs have been taken with precision and attention to detail. The choice of the photographic equipment used by the author in his work, a large-format digital camera, plays a forming part. Work with this camera requires more time and careful selection of points of view. The images obtained focus on spatial structures and their clear documentation allowing viewers to share the spatial experience of the buildings and places depicted by the author as well as feel the density of the time put into shooting them.
During his work, every photographer faces a choice of how to show reality: beautiful or ugly. Bruno Klomfar chooses to estheticize reality to the utmost degree, to separate and accentuate both precious architectural elements and elements of the everyday use and functioning of the buildings and monument shot. One of the qualities of the sites selected sought is that they be enlivened by society.
In a world where photography becomes more and more bodiless, this exhibition offers a classic presentation and a sense of matter filling up space, charged with a historical context. The works give rise to different sensations in different age groups. For each generation, the architecture carries different meanings. It outlives changes and people, sets itself free from political loads, changes its functions and should not be taken unambiguously, which is the very reason to preserve it and look at it from another point of view.
Nadezhda Pavlova
Nadezhda Pavlova is an author and curator specialized in photography. She lives and works in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Bulgaria, Another point of view
November 21 through December 22, 2017
SYNTHESIS Gallery
55 Vasil Levski Blvd
1142 Sofia
Bulgaria
