Janez Bogataj:

The eighties. A decade of (cultural) transition.

Photographic exhibition

The richness and diversity of cultural events, especially in the socio-politically turbulent eighties of the 20th century, is the common thread of Janez Bogataj's new exhibition. The selection of his black-and-white photographs reveals a view of new approaches to artistic production, traditional cultural currents, their intertwining and involvement in the intense dynamics of the time and space of that time. A wide range of portraits of both official and alternative culture, whom the photographer followed professionally and privately, is captured in moments of informal gatherings, in the middle of the work process or during planned portraits.

With his eternal search for difference and compositional innovation, Bogataj took the photographs in various roles and creative periods. Professionally as a photographer for the weekly Mladina, informally as a member of the eternally frivolous Fotogrupa M, and privately as Janez Bogataj, who is particularly fond of literary art.

The common denominator of the exhibition is diversity. The almost incompatible motifs of the lively Ljubljana alternative scene and the focus of professors of the Academy of Fine Arts during their annual work excursion, remind us once again that diversity has always been enriching and unifying in tolerant social environments.

The photographs on display are part of the photographic collection of Janez Bogataj, which is kept by the National Museum of Contemporary History.