Presentation of the book RED LIGHT – YUGOSLAV PARTISAN PHOTOGRAPHY AND SOCIAL MOVEMENT 1941–1945, published by Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung and Kolektor – the Visual Arts Center. The presentation will be held on Friday, 24 May 2019 at Moderna galerija (the Museum of Modern Art) in Ljubljana.

The book will be presented by Miklavž Komelj (art historian and poet), Miha Colner (curator and art historian), and Davor Konjikušić (author).

“Red Light” is a comprehensive, 400-page study with more than 500 illustrations. It thoroughly explores the phenomenon of partisan photography in the period from 1941 to 1945, in particular its social, propagandistic, agitational and, finally, artistic functions.

From the author’s conclusion: There is indeed a political fight ongoing over visual signifiers and the representation of the world today. We want to believe that precisely in these fights this book will find its significant place, since the ideology is represented, among other things, through photography. In the global world of capital exchange, even photographic archives become a commodity. The world’s leading photographic archives such as Getty Images strive, by means of ownership, to assert control over the visual language on the global level. In such archives, one will not find photographs that disseminate strong political messages or depict social struggles. In the local context, destroying the archive, its systematic neglect and the constant fabrication of false facts is faced with the unpleasant material represented in this book. The political engagement of this archive and its clear, unambiguous contextualization in the context of the political fight is needed now more than ever.