A Photo Book as a Box: On Mladen Teofilović’s work The Core

Authors

  • Jelena Matić

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25038/am.v0i28.521

Keywords:

photo book, box, text, history of photography, science, presentation, spectator, interpretation

Abstract

The history of the photo book is practically old as the history of photography. A photo book is more than just an object with leaves and pages, photographs, with or without text. Throughout The Core, the work of the young artist Mladen Teofilović, the text analyses the photography book as the relationships between text, images, and spectator. According to the artist's idea, the photo book looks like a metal box that imitates a hospital file. Conceiving the work in this way, the artist reveals and interprets the fragments from his life: his struggle with a severe migraine, his attempt to find a solution, to accept his condition and live with it. Teofilović directs his photo book to the spectator, inviting him to take a part in disassembly, analysis and reading where every picture, text or sentence does not have to but can take on a different meaning.

 

Article received: April 12, 2022; Article accepted: June 21, 2022; Published online: September 15, 2022; Original scholarly paper 

Author Biography

Jelena Matić

Faculty for Media and Communications, Singidunum University, Belgrade; Faculty of Applied Arts, Belgrade
Serbia

 

Jelena Matić (Belgrade, 1977) graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy, Art History Department, and received her master’s degree from the University of Arts in Belgrade, Theory of Art and Media. She was a contributor to the Refoto Magazine (2003–15); curator and the author of a large number of texts on the history and theory of photography. She was Art Director of the Gallery Artget in 2015, and author of the book A Short History of Photography (Cultural Center of Belgrade, 2017.). Since 2018, she has been an expert associate for the subject Development of the Medium of Photography at the Department of Applied Graphics (Module: Photography) at the Faculty of Applied Arts in Belgrade. During 2019. she launched a blog Image&Box: Photography. She is currently in Ph.D. studies, Department of Transdisciplinary Humanities and Theory of Art and Media, The Faculty for Media and Communications Belgrade. 

References

Barthes, Roland. “The Rhetoric of the Image.” In Classic Essays on Photography, edited by Aland Trachtenberg, 269–85. New Haven: Leete’s Island Books, 1980.

Baudelaire, Charles. “The Modern Public and Photography.” In Art in Theory: 1815–1900. An Anthology of Changing Ideas, edited by Charles Harrison, Paul Wood and Jason Gaiger, 666–8. London: Blackwell Publishing, 1998.

Burgin, Victor. “Looking at Photographs.” In Thinking Photography, edited by Victor Burgin, 142–53. London: Macmillan Education, 1987. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-16716-6_7

Drucker, Johanna. The Century of Artists Books. New York: Granary Books, 1995.

Flusser, Willem. Towards a Philosophy of Photography. London: Reaktion Books, 2000.

Rice, Shelley. “Words and Images: Artists Books as Visual Literature.” In Artists’ Books: A Critical Anthology and Sourcebook, edited by Joan Lyons, 59–85. Layton: Peregrine Smith Books, 1985.

Rosenblum, Naomi. A World History of Photography. New York: Abbeville Press, 2007.

Webography:

International Student Biennale of Art of Book [s] BUK2: PHOTO BOOK https://www.kcb.org.rs/en-us/2020/11/international-student-biennale-of-art-of-book-s-buk2-photo-book/. Accessed on July 17, 2022.

“Authors and descriptions of works.” In International Student Biennale of Art of Book [s] BUK2: PHOTO BOOK https://www.kcb.org.rs/meta-content/uploads/2020/11/international-student-biennale-of-art-of-book-s-buk2-photo-book-kcb.pdf. Accessed on July 17, 2022.

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Published

15.09.2022

How to Cite

Matić, J. (2022). A Photo Book as a Box: On Mladen Teofilović’s work The Core. AM Journal of Art and Media Studies, (28), 121–131. https://doi.org/10.25038/am.v0i28.521

Issue

Section

Main Topic: Rare, Bound, Cheap, Inserted – The Evolution of Photobooks