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IMPRESSUM

Nakladnik | Publisher

Kadar36

www.kadar36.hr

Za nakladnika | Official Representative

Max Juhasz

Urednik | Editor

Stanko Abadžić

Predgovor | Introduction by

Branka Hlevnjak

Prijevod na engleski | English Translation

Damjan Lalović

Grafičko-likovno oblikovanje i prijelom | Design & Layout

Zoran Jelača

Tisak | Printed by

Printera d.o.o

Godina izdanja | Year of Publication

2017.

Copyright: Stanko Abadžić and Kadar36

sabadzic.net.amis.hrabadzicphoto@gmail.com

ISBN 978-953-57655-9-2

CIP zapis je dostupan u računalnome katalogu Nacionalne i sveučilišne knjižnice u Zagrebu pod brojem 000966583.

zagrebStanko Abadžić

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Slike koje Stanko Abadžić odabire kao „svoje“ nastale su iz široke i bogate po-nude grada Zagreba, grada još uvijek po mjeri čovjeka, koji premda raste admi-nistrativno i urbano, uravnotežio je ne-kako i sva ona mjesta i „naselja“, koja su osamdesetih godina 20. stoljeća nazivali i „spavaonice“. Svaki grad nabujao u 19. stoljeću, kao i Zagreb, dijelio je prostor na ulični - reprezentativni i dvorišni – inti-mni, dok ga nije modernizam pedesetih godina 20. stoljeća rasuo ignorirajući logiku podjele, stvarajući objekte i me-đuprostore, sve jednako javne i parkirne, koje je postmoderna (iza 1975.) osudila kao otuđujuće, nastojeći vratiti logiku i humani smisao urbanizmu. O svemu tome svjedoči Stanko Abadžić kroz svo-ju pjesničku, lirsku i intimnu fotografiju posvećenu Zagrebu. Naglašavajući ri-tam grada, njegove mijene i različitosti, Abadžić kao da u svoje prirodno nijeme fotografske uratke priziva glazbu: od čiste tišine do buke.

Fotografije Stanka Abadžića apostrofi-raju činjenicu da su fotografije objektivno kao i sve naslikane slike nijeme. Naglasak na tišini nalazi u fotografijama izmaglica na ulicama, jezerima, uz potoke i rijeku Savu. Tišina se vidi/čuje i na fotografijama su-mraka, dok rominja kiša, sipi susnježica ili još dublje sve utihuje snijeg. Tišinu mirnog

i skladnog ritma osjetit ćemo i za sunčanih dana uz parkirane bicikle, i siluete sama-ca ili zaljubljenih, čije se sjene isprepliću s okolnim. Često su to minijaturne, udaljene siluete, više kao svjedoci vlastite minor-nosti, neznatnosti u tišini prostranstva.

Ritam svjetla dugih sjena pojačava do-življaj prolaznosti, kako ljudskih života tako i gradskih ugođaja, njegove arhitek-ture, da ne kažem prolaznosti čitavih gra-dova i civilizacija. Sjene su fotografu bitne jednako kao i objekti koji ih proizvode, ako ne i bitnije. Jer sjene crtaju, defor-miraju ili produhovljuju ljude i njihove artefakte poput umjetnički oblikovanih ograda od kovanog željeza, do onih ogo-ljelo funkcionalnih. Sve to stvara meki, romantični, tvrdi i čvrsti ili tek minimali-zirani dojam kojim Stanko Abadžić gradi svoju fotografsku estetiku. Napokon izbor slika uzetih gradu iz grada i njihov izrez/kadar zaustavljen je prema unutrašnjem osjećaju fotografa. Taj osjećaj je uzbuđenje nad ljepotom fizičke stvarnosti okrunjene duhovom moći užitka gledanja, koju autor vrlo koncentrirano i sugestivno preno-si gledatelju fotografijom. I na mjestima grubih betonskih konstrukcija prolaza, stubišta, podvožnjaka, nadvožnjaka, pod-mostovlja, platoa, krovova i sličnih mjesta suvremene gradnje Stanko Abadžić vidi i bilježi fotogeničnosti nastale ritmom

svjetla i sjena, grafizmom koji u ravnoj podlozi fotografije postaje prava grafička igra. Ako je tišinu ponegdje uz fotograf-ske prizore noćne rasvjete, kandelabera i pokojeg osamljenika, probijala asocijacija na kakve starogradske melankolične pje-sme, ovdje je to suvremena ozbiljna glazba koja je izbacila iz sebe „slike“ i melodiju, te čvrsto udara ritam, koji sugerira opo-rost i grubost betona. Samo sjene pritom omekšavaju dojam, dok red i vrsta ritmič-ke strogoće zaokružuje cjelinu.

Kad već glazbeno opisujemo ovaj izbor fotografija Zagreba Stanka Abadžića, onda zasigurno neka fina zagrebačka šansona struji pred fotografijama prizora Starčevi-ćevog trga s pogledom na fontanu i Hotel Esplanade (danas Royal), ili kakva scena sa Zrinjevca ili parka na trgu Francuske republike (danas Franje Tuđmana).

Kako je autor putnik-fotograf propu-tovao i fotografirao mnoge gradove on posvuda traži uz izvornost i potvrdu hu-manosti, potvrdu svom doživljaju svijeta koji ljude čini ljudima. Jednako tako, kao u nekoj igri nadmetanja, oprobavanja ili samo zadivljenosti i sjećanja na velikane fotografije, nalazi poznate motive kakve je fotografirao Henri Cartier Bresson ili André Kertész, i brojni drugi autori, osobito kada su u pitanju stolice i stolovi ili objekti koji tvore grafički ritam foto-

grafije. Komparirajući tako kroz jednake motive Zagreb i Pariz, povlađuje Zagrebu i dokazuje sebi i drugima da se jednaki motivi mogu naći posvuda i fotografirati na stotine različitih načina, dodajući im autorski pečat. „Klasičan motiv“ stolova i stolica, bez ljudi i konzumacije kojoj su namijenjeni, u promijenjenom prostoru sa sličnim estetskim učincima, intimni je izbor autorova svedočanstva o sličnostima urbanog života europskih gradova. A to Zagrebu godi.

Stanko Abadžić otkio je Zagrepčanima dijelove grada koje možda ne poznaju, jer su atipični, i prije bi pomislili da pripadaju kakvoj američkoj periferiji iz filmova, a nalaze se negdje rubno. Posvjedočio je ta-kođer da se u neuglednim kioscima mogu peči prave domaće i zagrebačke delicije: štrudli, bućnica, krumpiruša, burek, jer sve to piše na kiosku. Da je to dobro is-pečeno vjerujemo fino odjevenom „gos-ponu“ koji si je pribavio nešto od ovih specijaliteta.

Kako se Zagreb našao u globalizacij-skom „loncu“ tako su i ulice pune ogla-šivačke megalomanije. Ona se pretežno svodi na golema povećanja lica i tijela ma-nekenki koje reklamiraju neki proizvod, te nadvisuju ili „proždiru“ svojom veličinom stvarne ljude. Tu postmodernu igru mi-ješanja fotografirane ili slikane stvarnosti

sa fizičkom stvarnošću, koja se u raznim vidovima javlja u fotografiji, prihvatio je Stanko Abadžić kroz humor, ironiju ili šalu. Tako „Barbika“, golemi majmun i neka sovulja-čovjek promatraju sitno biće-čovjeka kako strojno čisti snijeg. Opatice prolaze kraj golemih plastičnih usama koje „ih ljube“. Zimski i starinski odjevena opatica-pripravnica vodi dijete a pred njima na hladnoći razgolićena ma-nekenka u donjem rublju. Dok muškarci na buvljaku prodaju časopise s golim lje-poticama, jedna ih takva gleda s plakata i poput goleme div-žene-svodilje nadzire ih u tom poslu. Grad je pun takovih apsurda i Stanko Abadžić ih na svoj fotografski na-čin irionizira. Oglašivačkoj megalomaniji pridružila se posljednjih godina i slikar-sko-ilustrativna megalomanija street-ar-ta. Iako slikari vrlo znalački prenose na zidove originalne ilustracije kakve bajke, ili detalje reprodukcija poznatih slikar-skih djela (na primjer Vlahe Bukovca), ili slikaju vlastiti rad, iluzionizam golemih likova izmiješan sa sve jadnijim i sitnijim ljudima podno njih, kako ih fotografira Stanko Abadžić, poništavaju vrijednost i cjelinu arhitekture, a o mjeri čovjeka da i ne govorimo.

Upravo tu kakofoniju fotografira Stanko Abadžić, kritizirajući fotografijom ludost i apsurd pretjerivanja u dimenzijama, koje

slikama daju prednost pred stvarnošću. To je Zagreb 21. stoljeća, a fotograf taj svjetski trend u kojem Zagreb ponosno učestvuje, ublažuje humorom i okrijepljuje šalom, pa svako ozbiljnije prosuđivanje ovih ugođaja pada u vodu.

U lepezi od potpune tišine, preko sta-rogradskih ugođaja, od posvudašnjim motivima europskih gradova, do novih ritmova betonskih zdanja, pa sve dalje do naslikanog i printanog iluzionizma koji poništava arhitekturu i finu igru vatrene kugle, o kojoj ovisi naš život, Sunca, sa svime što stoji i sve što se kreće pred nje-govim bijelim zrakama, a što je osnovni gradbeni elemenat umjetničkih fotografija Stanka Abadžića - sve je to Zagreb. I Baš toj i takvoj kugli, sukreatoru Abadžićevih fotografija, malom spomeniku Suncu u suvremenoj arhitekturi Glazbene akade-mije, fotograf daje posebno mjesto i kom-ponira fotografiju izuzetnog crno-bijelog sklada i duhovnosti. Tražimo li naj-foto-grafiju, onda je to upravo ta.

I da zaključimo: ovaj kaleidoskop ko-ji listamo kroz fotomonografiju Stanka Abadžića posvećenu Zagrebu gledamo s užitkom kakvu pruža pročišćena foto-grafska estetika nastala u potrazi autora za ljepotom jednostavnog, toplog i ljudskog.

Branka Hlevnjak

Zagreb očima Stanka Abadžića

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The pictures selected by Stanko Abadžić as "his own" have come forth from a varied

abundance offered by the city of Zagreb, the city which still retains a human meas-ure and which, in spite of its administra-tive and urban growth, has somehow also incorporated all those places and "neigh-bourhoods" that, in the 1980s, were called, inter alia, "dormitories". Every city grown rapidly in the 19th century, like Zagreb, di-vided space into street space – representa-tive and backyard – and intimate space, un-til the modernism of the 1950s dispersed it, ignoring the logic of the division and cre-ating objects and interspaces, all equally public and parking, which post-moderni-ty (after 1975) judged to be alienating, in the attempt to restore the logic and human meaning of urbanism. Stanko Abadžić tes-tifies to it all through his poetical, lyrical and intimate photography dedicated to Za-greb. Emphasizing the rhythm of the city, its changes and singularities, Abadžić seems to evoke music into his naturally mute photo-graphic works: from pure silence to noise.

Stanko Abadžić's photographs stress the fact that photographs, like all painted pic-tures, are objectively mute. He finds an em-phasis on silence in photographs of mist in the streets, on lakes, by brooks and the riv-er Sava. Silence is also seen/heard on pho-tographs of dusk, while rain drizzles, sleet trickles down or snow silences everything even more deeply. We feel the silence of a calm and harmonious rhythm on sun-ny days as well, with parked bikes and sil-

houettes of loners or couples in love, whose shadows intertwine with the surroundings. They are often miniature, distant silhou-ettes, rather like witnesses to their own ir-relevance, their utter insignificance in the silence of vastness.

The light-rhythm of long shadows rein-forces the feel of transitoriness, both of hu-man lives and of city ambiences, of city ar-chitecture, or even transitoriness of entire cities and civilizations. Shadows are essen-tial to the photographer just as much as the objects which cast them, if not more so. For shadows draw, deform or endow with spirit people and their artefacts, such as artistical-ly wrought fences of wrought iron, or those that are purely functional. All of this cre-ates a soft, romantic, hard and firm or just minimalized impression, whereby Stanko Abadžić constructs his photographic aes-thetics. After all, the selected pictures tak-en from the city and their cut/frame are captured in accordance with the photogra-pher's inner feeling. This is the feeling of ex-citement over the beauty of physical reality crowned by the spiritual power of the pleas-ure of observation, which the author con-veys to the observer in a very concentrated and suggestive way by means of photogra-phy. Even in places of rough concrete con-structions of passageways, stairways, sub-ways, flyovers, under-bridge spaces, pla-teaus, roofs and similar places of contem-porary construction, Stanko Abadžić notes and records the photogenic structures cre-ated by the rhythm of light and shadows, by

graphism which becomes a veritable graph-ic play in the flat underlying photograph. If in some places, with photographic scenes of night lighting, candelabras and one or two solitary figures, the silence was pierced by an association to some parlour melanchol-ic songs, here it is pierced by contempo-rary serious music which has expurgated "images" and melody from itself and which strikes a firm rhythm suggestive of the dry-ness and roughness of concrete. The impres-sion is softened only by shadows, while the order and type of rhythmic strictness round up the whole.

In line with our musical description of this selection of photographs of Zagreb by Stanko Abadžić, surely some delicate Za-greb chanson reverberates over the photo-graphs of scenes from Starčević Square with a view of the fountain and Hotel Esplanade (now Royal), or some scene from Zrinje-vac or the park on French Republic Square (now Franjo Tuđman Square).

Since the author, as traveller-photogra-pher, visited and photographed many cit-ies, he seeks everywhere not only original-ity and confirmation of humanity, but al-so confirmation of his view of the world which makes human beings human. By the same token, as if in a game of competition, strength-testing or mere admiration and recollection of the greats of photography, he finds familiar motives such as were pho-tographed by Henri Cartier Bresson or An-dré Kertész, and many other authors, par-ticularly with regard to chairs and tables or

Zagreb Through the Eyes of Stanko Abadžić

objects making up the graphic rhythm of a photograph. Thus comparing Zagreb and Paris through the same motives, he com-pliments Zagreb and proves to himself and others that the same motives can be found everywhere and photographed in hundreds of different ways, adding to them the au-thor's own imprint. The "classical motive" of tables and chairs, with no people and consumption which they are intended for, in a modified space with similar aesthet-ic effects, is the intimate choice of the au-thor's testimony to the similarities of the European cities' urban life. And this is an affectionate nod to Zagreb.

Stanko Abadžić has revealed to the citi-zens of Zagreb parts of the city which they may not know, because they are atypical, and which they would rather associate with some American periphery seen in the mov-ies, parts located somewhere on the mar-gins. He also attested to the fact that in nondescript kiosks one can find genuine home-baked delicacies of Zagreb: strudels, pumpkin-, potato-, cheese- and meat-pies, as specified on the kiosk board. We trust the smartly dressed gentleman, who pro-cured some of these specialties, that they are indeed baked well.

With Zagreb having come to be a part of the globalizational "pot", the streets are filled with advertising megalomania. It mainly comes down to huge enlargement of faces and bodies of models promoting some product, which loom over real peo-ple or "devour" them by their size. Stanko

Abadžić embraces with humour, irony or witticism this post-modern play of mix-ing photographed or painted realities with physical reality, which comes up in pho-tography in various facets. For instance, a "Barbie", a huge monkey and some sort of owl-man gaze upon a tiny man-creature operating a snow-clearing machine. Nuns pass by enormous plastic lips that "kiss" them. An apprentice-nun in old-fashioned winter clothes walks with a child, and in front of them, in the cold, a model wearing nothing but her underwear. While men in a flee market sell magazines with nude pic-tures of beauties, one such observes them from a poster, supervising them at it like a huge giant-pimp-woman. The city is full of such absurdities, and Stanko Abadžić ironizes them in his own photographic way. In recent years, the advertising meg-alomania has been joined by the painter-ly-illustrative megalomania of street-art. Although painters transfer onto the walls with great skill the original illustrations of some fairytale, or details of reproductions of well-known paintings (e.g. by Vlaho Bukovac), or else paint their own works, the illusionism of enormous figures juxta-posed with the increasingly wretched and tiny people underneath, as photographed by Stanko Abadžić, annuls the value and integrity of architecture, let alone the hu-man measure.

Stanko Abadžić photographs precisely this cacophony, criticizing through pho-tography the madness and absurdity of

exaggeration in dimensions which give pictures a prevalence over reality. This is 21st-century Zagreb, and the photographer tones down this worldwide trend (wherein Zagreb proudly participates) with humour and refreshing wit, which renders invalid any serious evaluation of these ambiences.

Spanning from absolute silence, through parlour ambience, from motives common to all European cities to new rhythms of buildings made of concrete, and further on to painted and printed illusionism that an-nuls architecture and the subtle play of the ball of fire our life depends upon, namely the Sun, with everything that stands still or moves under its white rays, and this be-ing the basic element of construction of Stanko Abadžić's art photographs – all of it is Zagreb. And it is precisely to this par-ticular ball, the co-creator of Abadžić's photographs, the small monument to the Sun within the modern architecture of the Academy of Music, that the photographer grants a special place and thus composes a photograph of exquisite black-and-white harmony and spirituality. If we are looking for the ultimate photograph, that is the one.

To conclude: leafing through Stanko Abadžić's photo-monograph dedicated to Zagreb, we watch this kaleidoscope with a delight resulting from purified photo-graphic aesthetics created in the author's quest for the beauty of simplicity, warmth and humanity.

Branka Hlevnjak

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