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The subject of this article is the analysis of copyright regulations regarding photographic works, with a consideration of the historical basis. The first act regulating the legal situation of photography was the Act of 29 March 1926 on Copyright. In the accordance with the provisions of the Act, photographic works could be the subject of copyright law, nevertheless the creation of rights was dependent on the fulfillment of a number of formal conditions, in particular placing copyright notice. The next Act of 10 July 1952 on Copyright did not bring many changes in this respect, still significantly limiting the scope of copyright protection granted to photographic works. On the other hand, currently binding Act of February 4, 1994 on Copyright and Related Rights, abandoned most solutions that limited the scope of copyright protection granted to photographic works. After analyzing the most important regulations within the subsequent copyright laws, the author evaluates the changes that occurred in the copyright regulations regarding photographic works in the 20th century.
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The article is an attempt to outline new methodological perspectives on performance studies which derive from Stephen Greenblatt’s Cultural Mobility Manifesto, published in 2010. It analyses the concept of “contact zones,” introduced for the first time in the humanities by Mary Luise Pratt in 1993, and subsequently developed by Stephen Greenblatt and Donna J. Haraway, demonstrating how it reformulates the present understanding of “performance.” According to the author of the article, the contact zones, intended as a space of encounter of heterogenic subjects, allow scholars to have a closer look at emergent strategies, meanings, and contingencies of the present cultural reality. To explain her argument, the author analyses two study cases: the performance Exhibit B by Brett Bailey from 2013, and an exhibition of photographer Pieter Ugo, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea at Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisbon (05.07.2018–07.10.2018).
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The text discusses a monograph by Piotr Rypson about Mieczysław Berman. When we consider Czerwony monter [The Red Assembler], however, we need to refer to a concept that is closely akin, namely, Andrzej Leder’s take on revolution. What is underscored here is Berman’s composite photographs since, as the author of this discussion believes and expands upon in her text – they depict most accurately the times of the photo designer’s life. He is considered the creator of the communist propaganda’s graphical language. And that is probably why a considerable period has had to elapse before he became again considered “worthy” of the scholarly interest. It seems, in this day and age, important to reconsider the works of this world-renown “assembler” of red propaganda, merely in order to trace the remnants of his style in the graphic-design culture of today.
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Review of: Lamija Neimarlija - Abadžić Hodžić, Aida, 2019. Slike suvremenosti: ogledi o arhitekturi, fotografiji i umjetnosti. Sarajevo: Dobra knjiga.
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The article is an extensive presentation of Szenderowicz's work created using J.S. Lec's aphorisms.
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Actress Mary Pickford is perhaps best remembered for her silent-screen persona “Little Mary.” But there was another important aspect to her Hollywood career that is frequently overlooked today: Pickford’s rise to power and fame corresponded with the era of the “New Woman” in U.S. society. This article explores the mediated construction of new womanhood as communicated through the coverage of Pickford’s career between 1918 and 1921 in the pages of the fan magazine Photoplay. It demonstrates how Photoplay used coverage of Pickford to promote the ideal of new womanhood until 1919, when she became the most powerful woman in American moviemaking by co-founding United Artists with three men. After that, at the start of the Roaring Twenties, the magazine sought to contain new womanhood by presenting Pickford almost exclusively as a child, without continuing to acknowledge her abilities as a savvy movie mogul and grown woman as it had regularly done in the past—until significant changes in her personal life required another noteworthy shift in the magazine’s coverage patterns of this star.
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The photograph was taken by Krisztina Kiss about the performance titled A nép ellensége (An Enemy of the People), presented at the HolnapUtán (The Day after Tomorrow) Festival of the Szigligeti Theatre. Starting from this image, János Henn, who plays one of the leading roles, reflects upon the legitimacy of theatre by way of a reverse train of thought.
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Is it possible to fulfil a (seemingly anachronic) desire for seeking beauty through its “distortion”? Can a wounded body be depicted as victorious? Who is imitated by “a portrait” of a biblical or mythological character? In what way can a subject be reflected in a used, worn-down thing? And, consequently, in what way is a photograph related to a subject and its particular story? Does it conserve it indefinitely or does it give it some extended “life after life”? What is the place of emptiness in a photographic image and what can be retrieved in it? Is it possible to visualize the sacred through the remains of things that a photograph rips from deterioration caused by time? The work of the photographer Ivan Pinkava is full of questions that are simultaneously the beginnings of answers.
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This portfolio presents a selection of artworks by the Slovak photographer, Zuzana Pustaiová. The artist gained wider recognition in 2012 when she won the international competition Frame as an art student. Following her success, she became recognized internationally and her work was included in several art and photography festivals around Europe. She is one of the few artists who follows the strong tradition in imaginative and staged photography, represented by artists such as Jana Hojstričová, Silvia Saparová or Gabriel Kosmály. Pustaiová’s main subject is the family, seen through the network of relationships between its members, and the roles they actively play in the family life. The portfolio is organized chronologically. Starting with two series exploring the lives of the artist’s grandparents (Trivial Stories/Trip to Mountains, Trivial Stories 2/Winter Games). The presentation continues with two series dedicated to Slovak folklore (Each Country – Its Customs and ‘Čiľ-ej’), followed by the works Family Album and Faces of Family dedicated to exploration of Pustaiová’s own family. The former draws material from photo albums, while the latter explores ties between actual living relatives. The portfolio ends with the autobiographical series Interlude dedicated to the artist’s current existential situation. Deeper insight into Pustaiová’s artistic program, ideas and motives is provided by the accompanying interview.
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Fejős Zoltán: Amerikai magyar műtermi fényképészek az 1880-as évektől a második világháborúig. (KépTár 5. sorozat.) Néprajzi Múzeum, Budapest, 2020. 150 oldal.
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Until the 1970s, the theory of photography in Bulgaria was regarded solely as a set of descriptions of technical specifics that photographers should be familiar with before starting their practical activities. Yet, thanks to “Bulgarian Photo” journal, a process began of rethinking this concept as “knowledge of photography”. In the late 1970s and especially in the next decade, “Bulgarian Photo” was the first in this country to publish excerpts from some of the fundamental theoretical works by authors such as Walter Benjamin, Susan Sontag, Roland Barthes, etc. At that time, the amount of photographic literature was extremely limited, and the available publications dealt only with technical problems. “Bulgarian Photo” remained the single edition providing more information about the theoretical ideas of famous Western authors. It was only in the late 1990s that some of the most important books on the theory of photography were translated and released in Bulgaria. The first theoretical book by a Bulgarian author was published in 2014. The theory of photography, however, remains an unpopular subject in Bulgaria, which is evidenced by the fact the universities providing photography courses do not include it.
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The photographic collection of the Bulgarian Historical Archive of the National Library “Sts. Cyril and Methodius” in Sofia is the first of this kind in Bulgaria (1948). Nowadays it is impressive in terms of size, richness and chronological scope, but unfortunately the collection is still not well known to different specialists and the general public. This article presents a very small part of this visual treasury of our past – a selected group of old photographs from Sofia. Actually, these are six quite different images when it comes to the subject, aesthetics, emotional impact and quality. They have preserved the appearance and particular atmosphere of the city at the end of the 19th century and during the first decades of the 20th century. Some of these examples are also valuable visual documents of the transformation of Sofia from an oriental town to the modern European capital in this period. This paper discusses the stories behind all these pictures as a kind of source for the history and spirit of Sofia and as well as a part of Bulgarian photographic heritage. These photographic fragments from the past f Sofia are guardians of the memory and have both artistic and documentary value.
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Searching for an accessible and easy-to-perform photographic process, in 1871 Richard Maddox invented gelatin silver dry plates. In 1879, mass production of readymade photographic media began, making the gelatin silver process the most widespread by the middle of the twentieth century. One of the most characteristic and common changes in the state of gelatin silver photographs is the appearance of a surface veil of silver particles, known as silver mirroring, which interferes with the aesthetic perception of images. The silver mirror is a serious problem facing institutions that preserve valuable photographic collections. Conservators offer many methods to eliminate this unwanted effect most of which are too risky for the photographic image or cannot be applied to all types of photographs. In 2018, Jordi Mestre and Rita Udina, a team of Spanish scientists, offered a new method that seems much safer and easier to apply. They use a combination of solvent and calcium carbonate to mechanically remove the silver film from the surface of the image.
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The article focuses on the interwar history of photogram in the works of Christian Schad, Man Ray and László Moholy-Nagy and argues that this easy-to-master technique gradually unfolds the modernist idea of freedom in art. Their work is explored in the historical context of Dada and Surrealism, and the comparative analysis emphasises the differences in their ideas and approaches. The photograms of the three authors are treated as reflections of three successive stages in which the representation is freed from reality. In the schadographs, objects are detached from their self-dependence, context and purpose; in the rayographs, they change their proportions, silhouettes and symbolic value, and in the prints of Moholy-Nagy, they lose their connection with their material form and get closer to the world of ideas. The article argues that the abstraction in the Bauhaus artist's photograms represents the modernist ideal in its highest form, coupled with striving for superhuman understanding: photogram is the key to understanding photography and its nature as cameraless light painting. Furthermore, it interprets the way Moholy-Nagy uses the technique to create a space ruled solely by the laws of light. The text summarizes the steps by which photogram freed photography from reality, using its problematic representative value to raise fundamental questions about the nature of the media.
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This study was inspired by Prof. Wolfgang Ullrich’s book History of Blurriness. It explores some of the reasons why the stylistics purposefully concealing a fraction of reality (the truth) has gradually permeated a conservative genre such as photoreportage. The coming of blurriness in documentary photography is followed through the development of the most famous photographic cooperative, Magnum Photos (founded in 1947) and the work of some of its most prominent members: Robert Capa’s photographs of the American troops landing on D-Day, Omaha beach in Normandy (1944); Paul Fusco’s series of Robert Kennedy’s funeral train (1968); the abstract television reproductions of TV Shots series by Harry Gruyaert (1969–1972), as well as some of Gueorgui Pinkhassov’s series, Antoine d’Agata, Trent Parke, Paolo Pellegrin, etc. The advent of digital technology further stimulated the usage of blurriness in photojournalism. Nowadays, everybody can use their phones to take high-quality images, some professional photographers reoriented towards a vision different from reproduction and close to the “disfigured” look of blurriness. In conclusion, blurriness is no longer a province of the artistic photographic genres alone, but rather it is now part of the means of the documentary photography. That is because blurriness allows intensifying the expressive power of an image without replacing or distorting its informative function and objectivity.
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The article investigates the terms photobook, photographic book and photographically illustrated book and how these terms have been used in different periods; when they have come into being; in which scientific or art researches they occur. The emergence and increased use of the designation „photobook” at the turn of the twenty-first century is considered. The text goes back to the second half of the nineteenth century to delve into the earliest sources in which the use of the term occurs. A graphical analysis by Jose Luis Neves is presented using the Ngram Viewer tool, which outlines the frequency of use of the abovementioned terms, from the mid-1800s to 2019, in digitised English texts in Google Books. The data obtained seem reliable enough to serve as evidence of the predominant use of „photobook” in the last two decades and its scarcity in previous periods. Following the graph, the publications that have contributed to the popularisation of this term are considered. Several iconic ontological studies are presented, which reconsider the history of photography through its role in publications and their contribution to the shaping of the contemporary understanding of „photobook”. The coming of a parallel form of photobook, which replaced the photo album on paper copies and was launched onto the mainstream market, is considered, as well as the reasons for such replacement: the arrival of digital technologies in photography and printing. Recently published books are also described, which guide the more ambitious authors on how to self-publish.
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