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BALKAN VITAL GRAPHICS
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Vlado Alonso
Paintball
(Belgrade 2007)
“These photos are from two series,
On the
expectation side (Bor, Serbia)
and
Belgrade
07
by
Vlado Alonso
, which have been
taken during the last two years. The people
of these places are caught up in a series of
accelerating economic processes, which in
turn drive social trends that seem to obey
their own logic, producing increasing ine-
quality. Such changes are generally spread
over several decades, but here they have
been packed into just a few years follow-
ing the post-war upheaval. These pictures
represent an attempt to capture a particu-
lar place and time. It is within that specific
framework that the subject matter takes on
its full meaning.
A trial of photographic objectivity, which
throws out any claim to realism but reha-
bilitates the pictorial merits of the artist’s
work, countering what may seem blinding-
ly obvious and demanding that we recon-
sider everything, starting with what is most
familiar, in the light of our astonishment.”
Michel Thévoz
,
writer and former curator of the Musée
d’Art Brut in Lausanne