| My entire existence feels like a permanent vacation. Reality is photogenic in itself to me. I never find myself in search of a subject, as subjects never cease to come my way. There are only not enough photo films, not enough time, not enough space, and never enough funds to grasp it all. Funny enough, this seemingly straightforward approach turns me into a sort of an odd ball in an art world that values experiment more than anything today and, in general, in a world where potentially everything has to get an arty touch. A general incapacity of seeing the spectacular in my works left me with a frustration, which I may call “the arrogance of the technique.” This is how I always find myself trying to compensate the apparent lack of the catchy factor…. |  |
Bogdan Girbovan
My entire existence feels like a permanent vacation. Reality is photogenic in itself to me. I never find myself in search of a subject, as subjects never cease to come my way. There are only not enough photo films, not enough time, not enough space, and never enough funds to grasp it all.
Funny enough, this seemingly straightforward approach turns me into a sort of an odd ball in an art world that values experiment more than anything today and, in general, in a world where potentially everything has to get an arty touch. A general incapacity of seeing the spectacular in my works left me with a frustration, which I may call “the arrogance of the technique.” This is how I always find myself trying to compensate the apparent lack of the catchy factor with the utmost technique I can handle. To the same effect, my subjects always extend over series, in a personal answer to creative capitalism.
10/1 is a series of images taken in my own flat and the nine lining down below it. A documentation of the communist blocks of flats, the series is an insight to the virtual infinity of shapes that an identically projected space can take. In communist times, people lived in identical apartments, in an attempt to prevent any individualistic inclinations of the new man, who was not supposed to have anything of his own.
5@14 portrays a group of 14-year-old boys hanging out in my neighborhood. Beyond the cocooned manhood of each separate figure, this series aims at identifying early indications of social hierarchy in a group of young men.
2 Star Trip is a RoArchive order, an initiative to document post-communist Romania. I chose to shoot a series of images along the Black Sea Coast. Photographs in 2 Star Trip swing between peaceful hideouts and architectural mayhem.
Uniforms & Vestments, a work in progress, investigates the visual force of a coat, and the power lying behind it. Focusing on the outer symbols and their specific background, this series will illustrate the hierarchy of the Orthodox Church and the Romanian Police, and will include portraits of the higher and the lower officials.
