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Photographic memory >> Blind photographer Evgen Bavcar conjures up his past by KEITH MARCHAND
Evgen Bavcar is a photographer who was born in Slovenia and now lives in Paris. He is also blind. Not exactly a boon for someone involved in the visual arts, one would think. But a show called Nostalgie de la Lumière at Dazibao puts a wrench in any such preconceived notions. Bavcar began to lose his sight at 11. A few years after that, he began to take pictures. He took up the camera as a way to remain connected to the visible world and to demonstrate that the realm of the image does not belong only to those with sight. Bavcar's images are taken from (what he calls) his interior gallery of images, collected and stockpiled before the onset of his blindness. Visual traces from his childhood remain the inspiration and subject matter for most of his work. Recollections of his past in Slovenia and tales handed down from friends and family are imagined and then produced as photos. When on a shoot, Bavcar uses a fully automatic high-speed camera and relies on the guidance of a companion for the essentials of framing. Most of the time, Bavcar will use touch to locate the shot that he wants. Nostalgie de la Lumière contains 21 black and white photographs. Often the dusky, moody images are contrasted by flashes of light. The photos seem to be the outward product of Bavcar's recollections: images of stars, birds and faded family photos reappear throughout his work. The photos on exhibit are carefully planned and well executed. One print offers a ghostly image of the brown-sugar spires of the Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona. Antonio Gaudi's strange sandcastle opus looms out of the darkness with a chalky hole burnt out in place of the moon and two swallows swooping into the frame. Another shows a field of dandelions, a carpet of cotton-ended stalks spanning out of sight to the horizon. They reach upward toward an ink-black sky. As though a physical manifestation of memory, a young girl sits outside a small roadside chapel. She is grinning and affected as though posing for a vacation photo. Superimposed is an old and worn photograph of Bavcar as a child. Its scratched and worn patina forms a counterpoint to the travel shot. Bavcar's photos are not done for the visual pleasure of the artist; instead his gaze exists only through the vision of others. He can see only when others view his collection of interior images. This is why the exhibition has the feel of a scrapbook, a family album and a very personal tale. Nostalgie de la Lumière: An exhibition of Evgen Bavcar runs until March 21, at Dazibao, 4001 Berri, suite 202
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The only comparison that springs to mind is that of old Ludwig Van. At the age of 32, he started to lose the one thing you would think necessary to make music: his hearing. That he went on to compose three full-string quartets while stone deaf remains one of the most intriguing elements in the life story of that temperamental Teutonic ivory-tickler.