From the Carnival Figures series, 1966-1996
Zmago Jeraj
From the Carnival Figures series, 1966-1996
Photographs: Zmago Jeraj
Text: Milojka Kline
Publisher: Umetnostna galerija Maribor
78 pages
Year: 1996
Price: 25 €
Comments: Spiral bound hardcover, 21 x 30 cm. Text in Slovene and English. Some signs of wear and mark left by removed price sticker on covers, inside in perfect condition.
Zmago Jeraj ‘s series of photographs on the theme of Carnival spans thirty years. The first photographs were taken by chance, merely for the artist’s personal archive, with no intention of exhibiting them. Moreover, the initially opportune subject matter was not considered potentially valuable for sustained creative interest. Over time, however, the number of images of figures and scenes associated with Carnival grew and developed into a series. The majority of the shots were taken in the Slovenian town of Ptuj, known for its carnival parade and for the unique carnival figure of “kurent” and its companions. After 1984, when a carnival festival was also organized in Maribor, Jeraj began documenting events in both cities. He focused on masked figures appearing alone or isolated in a crowd of ordinarily dressed people, or on small groups of costumed figures accompanied by random companions. He was interested in homemade costumes, which were often clumsily fashioned and gave a clear indication of the person’s ingenuity, skill, and finances. Although Jeraj creates his visual reality with his choice of the event and the moment of freezing it in time, his series of photographs is not without traits of reportage photography and its verism. The outskirts of the center of Ptuj with derelict industrial buildings provide a suitable setting for these images. The emphasis on the banality of the setting robs the carnival figures of their power and creates the semantic concept that prevails throughout the series Carnival Figures and aims to degrade the spectacularity of the figures in various ways. It is thus expressed only with vague allusions to the marginal significance of the costume in relation to the prosaic whole, underlining the futility of the figure’s presence.
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