The Transitions exhibition draws attention to particular tendencies or “course” in the field of so-called art photography, which can be identified by distant “cold” objectivity of depictions. The authors selected seem to share a common interest in “architecture photography”, though after taking a closer look, this phrase proves to be merely a sort of descriptive tool. Usually it is large format colour photography, formally distinguished by sharp details, together with compositional and light-colouristic harmony. Abroad, such aesthetics are usually attributed to the “Post Düsseldorf School of Photography” and such artists as Andreas Gursky, Candida Höfer and Thomas Struth, who have exerted a strong presence at large exhibitions of contemporary photography over recent years. In Slovenia such aesthetics are most evident in the photographers profiled below.

Tomaž Gregorič has been focusing on motifs drawn from urban margins since 1997. These encompass images of suburban developments, individual buildings together with blocks and housing estates as well as emergent urban infrastructure. His eyes also capture that which is “beyond” – the blurred fringe between “settlement” and “nature” where the townscape gives way to a more organic order. Various such motifs are captured in Outskirts, a series-in-progress.

Branko Cvetkovič has long maintained a standard of strong objectivity in his depictions, adding value to his photography through technical refinement. He uses a framing procedure which facilitates not only a full view of the object, but also its surroundings and details. Cvetkovič is particularly interested in unveiling the traces of recent history in widely known buildings in the townscape of the Slovenian capital. This photographic documentation of spatial reality has been created in the context of the series entitled En Face (images of façades).

Bojan Salaj, who embarked on his Interiors cycle only three years ago, has thus far ‘recorded’ elements of the premises of a number of secular and religious institutions (for example a series of Confessional Boxes). These photographs provide “naked” objective images of well-known architecture that appears empty and cold in Selaj’s photos, creating a strong alienating effect. For this very same reason they encourage consideration as to the symbolic meaning of the places depicted, and their social, cultural and ideological functions.