Lecture synopsis

Academy of Fine Arts Novi Sad

Winter semester, 2016/2017

Inviting lecturer: Mia Ćuk, Department for Photography

Invited lecturer: Sonja Jankov, independent art theoretician and historian

Photography and Architecture

After a short review of art historical aspects, the lecture focuses on ways in which
photography and architecture overlap, opening a discussion on possibility of representing
space completely in a photograph. Using methods of monologue and dialogue, the lecture is
divided into four segments that determine different aspects of architectural process
documented by photographs and ways in which art photography approaches architecture.

The first part of the lecture, Aspects of Architecture and Photography, turns to segments of
architecture that can be useful to students from the Photography Department: phases of
construction, phases of demolition and destruction (including reportage photography from
Syria), finished architectural objects, drawings and documentation in museums and archives,
acknowledged and unrecognised heritage, such as brutalism and socialist modernism, as well
as stage design and interior design. This part also notes the specific objects which are not
allowed to be photographed and analyses what is photograph as architecture.

The second part of the lecture is focusing on photograph as means of documenting and
presenting art interventions and installations in open public space. It also turns to
documentation of events as a way to represent architecture, resulting in architecture to be
defined as an event.

The third part is dedicated to art photography that uses architecture as an important element,
presenting several young contemporary visual artists whose works became widely popular.
The closing segment is focusing on photographs of architecture in film, analysing its
aesthetical and theoretical characteristics.

During any part of the lecture, listeners can take part in discussion.