The photographic exhibition by Gregor Radonjič presents a motif view which has not previously been presented in this way within contemporary Slovenian photography. With his innovative approach to photographic research, instinctive shots and selected perspectives, the author has filled the present photographic images with a sensitive perception of isolation, abandonedness, transitoriness and disguisedness of the remains of the former Jewish ghettos.
With the works which Gregor Radonjič presents to the visitors of the Maribor Synagogue for the first time, he continues his typical narration about the blurred traces of the urban space. The photographic images from Krakow, Warsaw and Budapest provide images of insignificant and almost unidentifiable city corners, the true stories of which remain hidden at first sight and are revealed only when the author discloses the actual location of the emergence of the photographs – the former Jewish ghettos. Their remains are now surrounded by new, modern architecture which, as the author says himself, has “absorbed the walls of the former ghettos and taken away their identity, as well as their historical and symbolic meaning” in only a few decades.
Gregor Radonjič was born in 1964 in Maribor. He graduated from the Faculty of Technical Engineering of the University of Maribor and joined Fotoklub Maribor in the early 1990s. For several years, he was one of its most active members. He has presented his photographic creations at 21 solo author exhibitions and more than 50 group exhibitions in Slovenia and abroad. He has provided photographs for three books, and is a co-author of nine multimedia performances with diapositives. Furthermore, he regularly cooperates in different cultural and artistic projects, and has received numerous awards for his works. He lives and works in Maribor.
The exhibition will be opened on 24 September, at 7 p. m., in the frame of the official opening of the Festival of Photography Maribor 2016. The opening will be performed on ‘Židovski trg’ square.
Coorganizers of the exhibition are photographic society Fotoklub Maribor and the Center of Jewish Cultural Heritage Synagogue Maribor. The programmes of the Synagogue Maribor are financed by Municipality of Maribor.