Baggage
Memento pt.3
exhibition in Belgrade Youth Center, 2017.
Baggage
A series of photographs and X-rays called Baggage represents the last part of the trilogy of Luka Klikovac. The story continues and at the same time ends with the project Baggage. The same actors from his previous series, Memento and Mirror, were shot at night in different exteriors and interiors of surreal, tense and creepy atmosphere. With cold, aloof glance, as if the last people on earth, they are shown with suitcases and bags anticipating an action that is yet to happen. Who are they? What or who are they waiting for? Where are they going? These are not the only questions that are imposed. Perhaps more important one is: What are they carrying in their baggage? Due to the presence of tension and film structure, and more than in previous two cycles, Luka Klikovac has taken the position of a film director, the one who has left nothing to chance, from selection of locations and appearance of protagonists, through lightning and shooting, to presentation in the gallery. At the same time, he went further by introducing enlightened X-rays that reveal the mystery of the contents of baggage itself to spectators. According to common understanding about photography, the negative or the film hides something because it gives us shapes of objects, people or situations, while the positive or the image itself is the one that reveals. Here we find the opposite. A photo or a positive is the one that hides, while the X-ray is the one that reveals the mystery of contents of suitcases and bags, thus introducing new situations and contents into stories. In this way, the problem of reality and authenticity of photography gets a new, atypical approach.
Jelena Matic, MA
