Ljubljana
MGML
On the Other Side
© Matevž Paternoster/MGML

Jakopič Gallery

Slovenska cesta 9
1000 Ljubljana

T +386 1 42 54 096
T +386 1 24 12 500
E galerija.jakopic@mgml.si

Tuesday–Sunday: 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
Monday: Closed

1 January, 1 November, 25 December: Closed
24 and 31 December: 10. a.m.-2 p.m.

1 Part: 3 €, Reduced (students, people over the age of 60, unemployed, people with disabilities): 2 €
2 Parts: 5 €, Reduced (students, people over the age of 60, unemployed, people with disabilities): 3 €
3 Parts: 7 €, Reduced (students, people over the age of 60, unemployed, people with disabilities): 5 €
Family ticket: 7 €
ICOM, PRESS, SMD, students of the Academy of Fine Arts and Design, VIST – Higher School of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Natural Sciences and Engineering – OTGO, Faculty of Design: Admission free 

Join the Friends of the Jakopič Gallery. In 2021 the 9 € membership fee includes numerous benefits and exclusive events. Click here for more information.

On the Other Side

Slovenian photoreportage

19. 1. 2021–19. 6. 2021

"On the Other Side" has taken an interdisciplinary approach, assessing photojournalism through the lenses of media studies, art history and photographic theory. While also giving an overview of the different kinds of photojournalism and the ways they are used in the print and electronic media, this exhibition deliberately focuses on photoreportage, the most accomplished and expressive form of photojournalism.

A photoreportage always combines visual and textual narrative. This is why most of the material in this exhibition is not presented as individual photographs, but in the form in which readers experienced it, allowing visitors to see the skill of the photographer, and the approach taken, as well as the scope – always limited by editors – they had to tell their visual story. This approach also reveals the relationship between photograph and text. We did not want to focus only on the visual quality of individual photographs or treat them as artistic artefacts – even though some of them undeniably qualify as such. Rather, our aim was to present photoreportage as a visual narrative dependent on a whole host of factors that affect the visibility of the photojournalist's work: editorial decisions, economic considerations, media landscape, technical constraints and, last but by no means least, how readers respond to the photoreportage and the ways its images are inscribed in the social visual memory.

"On the Other Side" is rooted in the work of the photojournalists themselves, rather than providing an interpretation of it through the eyes of academics or curators. By their own accounts, confirmed in the academic literature, photojournalists and their work almost always find themselves “on the other side”. They are of course always on the other side of the lens from their subject; good photojournalists – those who seek to be more than mere illustrators – will always try to reveal the other side of the story too, presenting it through their own eyes. In a social sense, their photographs reveal another, hitherto often unseen or unknown, side of the event in question. In their day-to-day work they are often made to feel they are on the other side by editorial policy, too – on the opposite bank from the interests that direct this policy. The narrative power of the visual image is often overlooked in favour of text, and commercial content is given priority over what the photojournalist considers socially significant. And, as implied by the title of this exhibition, a powerful photograph is too often pushed off the front page, pushed to the other side, treated as being of only secondary importance.

The material we have compiled is presented under three broad headings – "Identity", "Power", and "The Everyday" – and intertwines the timelines of events and circumstances that have influenced and often determined photojournalistic production in Slovenia. It covers both the individual photojournalists, whether employed or freelance, and those newspapers and magazines that, as the final decision-makers on which photojournalistic material will ever reach a public audience, have sufficiently understood the power of photoreportage to make space for it on their pages. The exhibition is divided into three sections, the first two of which will remain fixed throughout, while the third will tackle each of the three thematic headings ("Identity", "Power", and "The Everyday") in turn. 

Having spent the last two years researching, leafing through hundreds of thousands of newspaper and magazine pages, consulting with experts from a wide range of fields, studying museum and archive collections, and interviewing photojournalists, editors and others with first-hand experience of photojournalism, we are confident that we have created a platform that is very different from previous overviews of the history of Slovenian photography or individual photographic genres: a platform that will open up numerous opportunities for further research, reflection and, most importantly of all perhaps, discussion.


Part 1 – Identity: 19. 1.–7. 3. 2021
Part 2 – Power: 9. 3.–9. 5. 2021
Part 3 – The Everyday: 11. 5.–19. 6. 2021 

The accompanying publication has been designed as a hybrid between a collection of scholarly papers and a catalogue, and is in four parts: an introduction followed by one volume for each of the three themes that the exhibition will address in turn – "Identity", "Power" and "The Everyday" – with the publication of each of these volumes coinciding with the relevant change of theme. The historians, sociologists, cultural anthropologists, art historians and of course photojournalists who have contributed to the publication all shed their specialist light on the individual themes and the way they are represented in photoreportage.

On the Other Side. Volume 1: Indtroduction

The Introduction can be accompanied by a note that this first part of the publication "On the Other Side" represents the minimum of what the Slovenian photojournalism needs in terms ...

On the Other Side. Volume 2: Identity

The papers in the second volume of the "On the Other Side" publication offer a view of Slovene photojournalism through the prism of identity. The presented chapters do not share ...

On the Other Side. Volume 3: Power

The papers in the third volume of the "On the Other Side" publication shed light on Slovene photojournalism through the theme of power.

On the Other Side. Volume 4: The Everyday

The papers in the fourth volume of the "On the Other Side" publication shed light on Slovene photojournalism through the theme of the everyday.

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[Z druge strani v živo] Kam z arhivom? (dr. Uroš Hočevar, Borut Krajnc, mag. Meta Krese, Janja Papež, Joco Žnidaršič)

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Colophon

Production: Museum and Galleries of Ljubljana
In cooperation with: Social Communication Research Centre (University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Social Sciences), Membrana
Curators of the exhibition: Marija Skočir, dr. Ilija Tomanić Trivundža, Julija Hoda
Curatorial assistance: Nika Perne, Janja Buzečan
Authors of the project: Marija Skočir (Museum and Galleries of Ljubljana), Dr Ilija Tomanić Trivundža (Social Communication Research Centre), Dr. Jan Babnik (Membrana)
Expert advisers: Julija Hoda, Nika Perne, Dr Blaž Vurnik
Graphic and exhibition design: Bojan Lazarevič (Agora Proars)
Set design: Urša Loboda
Reproductions of photographic material: Matevž Paternoster
Realisation of the exhibition: Technical Service MGML, O.K.vir,
This project was possible by: City of Ljubljana
The project was supported by: National Museum of Contemporary History , Delo, Večer, Dnevnik, Mladina, Ljubljana City Library, National and University Library  
Media sponsor: TAM-TAM

Jakopič Gallery

Slovenska cesta 9
1000 Ljubljana

T +386 1 42 54 096
T +386 1 24 12 500
E galerija.jakopic@mgml.si

Tuesday–Sunday: 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
Monday: Closed

1 January, 1 November, 25 December: Closed
24 and 31 December: 10. a.m.-2 p.m.

1 Part: 3 €, Reduced (students, people over the age of 60, unemployed, people with disabilities): 2 €
2 Parts: 5 €, Reduced (students, people over the age of 60, unemployed, people with disabilities): 3 €
3 Parts: 7 €, Reduced (students, people over the age of 60, unemployed, people with disabilities): 5 €
Family ticket: 7 €
ICOM, PRESS, SMD, students of the Academy of Fine Arts and Design, VIST – Higher School of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Natural Sciences and Engineering – OTGO, Faculty of Design: Admission free 

Join the Friends of the Jakopič Gallery. In 2021 the 9 € membership fee includes numerous benefits and exclusive events. Click here for more information.

News

On the Other Side. Slovenian photoreportage
On Tuesday 10 November, curator Marija Skočir and head of the Jakopič Gallery presented our latest large project. Centred on the topic of Slovenian photoreportage, it is a collaboration with the Social Communication Research Centre at the Faculty of Social Sciences and the Membrana Institute. The presentation was part of the programme for the "Days of Photography of the Tošo Dabac Archive" event, organised by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb.
17. November 2020
Jakopič Gallery
Jakopič Gallery in 2020

From contemporary Indonesian photography to Slovenian press photography

6. January 2020
Jakopič Gallery

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