Premiere of Jacek Fota's Some Things are Quieter than Others
A photographic album designed by Ania Nałęcka graphically portrays the results of Jacek Fota’s four journeys to the United States. However, the ‘American dream’ is notably absent from these stills.
On 27th November 2014, the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw will host the première of Jacek Fota's album Some Things are Quieter than Others.
The United States are boring and monotonous – says Fota.
This is the image of the USA contained within the artist’s shots. However, the photos themselves are neither monotonous nor boring. The images by Jacek Fota are simple, pure, spacious and well-composed. We see the United States as terribly desolate, without fireworks, smiles and waving flags.
Embeded gallery style
display gallery as slider
Fota visited the United States four times in 2012 and 2013,. He crossed thousands of kilometres, avoiding metropolises and places known from Hollywood productions. He concentrated on the peripheries of civilisation, creating a collection of images which are unimpressive, ordinary and devoid of grandeur.
The 44 photos selected for the album sum up the photographer’s journey. They include static landscapes divided in half by the line of the horizon, and portraits of municipal services and interiors suggesting a trace of someone’s presence.
Ania Nałęcka, known for her cooperation with the
Sputnik Photos collective, is responsible for the graphic layout. The album’s cover resembles a school notebook or a diary of a journey. A sticker on each album’s front page features the handwritten signature of the author and a watercolour painting by Jagna Wróblewska. Inside the album, there are small photographs arranged in a classic layout. They aren’t accompanied by any text, as if the photos were developed and put in between the pages of a notebook as souvenirs. The back of the book features a map of the United States drawn with a ballpoint pen marked with the photographed places. The balance and thriftiness of the project harmonize with Fota’s restraint in his selection of subjects and the forms of the photographs.
Jacek Fota is a freelance photographer living in Warsaw. He deals predominately with documentary photography, mainly working on long-term photographic projects. He’s currently working on his second photographic book – about the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw – under a grant from the Culture Bureau of the Office of the Capital City of Warsaw.
The première of the album Some Things are Quieter than Others is to take place on 27th November, 2014, at 18:30 in the Bookoff bookshop in the building of the Museum of Modern Art at 51 Emilii Plater street.
Some Things are Quieter than Others
104 pages
44 photos
165 x 198 mm
photos: Jacek Fota
edited by: Ewa Meissner
the watercolour from the cover: Jagna Wróblewska
designed by: Ania Nałęcka / Tapir Book Design
self-published
edition: 500 copies
Warsaw 2014
Sources: press materials, ed. DS, transl. szm, 21.11.2014
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