Damjan Gale: The Architect of Light

Damjan Gale was born on 3 April 1946 in Ljubljana. His first artistic achievements included two scene designs for theatrical performances of the Ljubljana City Theatre directed by his father, Jože Gale. He created the first while still studying at the Faculty of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy in Ljubljana, from where he graduated in 1970. Soon afterwards, he took up a job as a building designer at the Investment Institute for the Construction of Ljubljana’s Revolution Square, more precisely in the studio of his former professor Edvard Ravnikar, helping design his plans. Having taken up architectural photography already at the time of construction of Revolution Square in the early 1970s, Gale eventually decided for a freelance career as a photographer in 1978.

The 1980s saw Gale’s greatest achievements. In 1982, his series of photographs of Plečnik’s columns was first showcased in Ljubljana’s PEN Centre. After having gained special recognition in Italy, the exhibition travelled across the world. Today, it might be considered Gale’s most representative series of photographs and, simultaneously, a visualisation of the very essence of Plečnik’s architecture that has not been surpassed since. In 1986, Boris Podrecca undertook to organise the first international show of Plečnik’s oeuvre to be staged in Centre Pompidou in Paris, France. Gale’s photographs accounted for the biggest component of the exhibition’s visual identity. Again in Paris in the same year, Gale was involved in an international project called Trouver Trieste, which can be regarded as his most intimate and original series of photographs. During a presentation of Trieste in Paris, the series was showcased on the first floor of the Eiffel Tower. Gale was also a regular guest at the Piran Days of Architecture. In this context, he created the Piran Dialogues series (1992), which was again characterised by a high degree of genuineness of expression.

He served as a long-standing editor of photography for the Architect’s Bulletin magazine. DESSA (the Association of Freelance Architects), which he had helped to establish, assisted in publishing numerous monographs, calendars and anthologies featuring his photographs. Gale was also active as a photographer within the Kras Group. His insightful interpretations of architectural works were instrumental in achieving important presentations, gaining awards and winning contests. Gale won numerous awards both in Slovenia and abroad. The last in the long series was the Plečnik Medal in 1986 for the Photography of Architecture, his only overview exhibition.

Damjan Gale can best be described as a photographer with a restless creative spirit, aspiring to the absolute technical perfection of his prints which, moreover, he made himself. His approach to the photographic medium was completely systematic. As a result, a great many of the pictures making up his oeuvre exist in both black-and-white and colour versions. However, the photographer himself had a much stronger belief in the expressive power of the former. He was well aware that a number of indispensable factors influence the process of photographic creation. Along with the constructive dialogue within the circle of his colleagues, familiarity with current developments, and the co-operative spirit in the field of architecture, he believed in several other factors such as continuing education on photographic techniques, the search for the most appropriate atmosphere and ambiance capable of rendering the carefully considered concepts, and the benefit of extensive field trips. The latter were undertaken as original logistical steps that helped him determine the right viewing angle. Burning the midnight oil in his darkroom, Gale also came up with several innovations and experiments. Gale gave much of his life energy to his profession; it is impossible to find in Slovenia a similarly unique personality either before Gale or after him.

In retrospect, the most valuable part of Gale’s preserved oeuvre is the original vintage prints intended for exhibitions and publications made by the photographer himself. These form the centrepiece of the present exhibition. The other photographs, although made in the digital technique, are based on original negatives which are kept by the Damjan Gale Archive managed by his family. Accompanying the exhibition is the first overview monograph about Gale’s work, containing over 180 black-and-white and colour photographs.

Damjan Gale: The Architect of Light

Accompanying "Damjan Gale: The Architect of Light" exhibition is the first overview monograph about Gale’s work, containing over 180 black-and-white and colour photographs.