It seems a very long time ago that I first met Andrzej and Inez Baturo in Bielska-Bialo, and it’s something of a surprise when I realise it was only 10 years ago.
You can read more about my first visit to Poland and the first FotoArtFestival held in Bielsko-Biala, Poland in June-July 2005, organised by the Foundation Centre of Photography there, with Andzej, the centre’s president as Art Director and Inez, the vice president as Programme Director in my Polish diary.
It was a fine festival, with an international cast of photographers, one from each of around 25 countries, with some well-known names including Eikoh Hosoe from Japan, Boris Mikhalov from Ukraine, and Ami Vitale from the USA, as well as work by the late Inge Morath (Austria) and Mario Giacomelli (Italy) and others. There was also a strong Polish representation, with soft-focus pictoriasm by Tadeusz Wanski from the middle of the twentieth century, and the much gritter group show ‘”Unoffical Image” – Polish photoreportage of the 1970s/80s‘ which included work by Andrzej Baturo.
Last year Galeria Bielska showed ‘Andrzej Baturo – 50 Years Of Photography‘ with around 200 images over the years since he began taking pictures in 1962. You can read an English version of the page about it, which quotes Andrzej as saying:
The photograph was first invented simply to record social realities, but with time, social documentary photography and reportage photography have both been raised to the status of art, much in the same way as the journalism of Hanna Krall or Ryszard Kapuściński are now considered great literature. I feel a close affinity with both these areas, and I’ve never been sure whether I’m more of a journalist than an artist, or the other way round.
The Polish version is here. Also in Polish, but worth watching for the images even if you understand little or nothing that is being said, is the video, Andrzej Baturo – 50 lat z fotografią. There is also a page about the show with some comments on his work on the Polish site Art Imperium, which I viewed through Google Translate.
There is now a crowd funding appeal for the publication of a book Andrzej Baturo – 50 years of photography. I’m not sure how well a link to the page through Google Translate will work, and if you understand Polish or have a browser that will automatically translate, you may find the Polish original works better. And even if like me you don’t speak Polish, the pictures speak in any language.
The various rewards available for supporting the publication are of course priced in Polish Zloty (PLN) and where items are to be posted, international postage would presumably need to be added. But 150 zł (about £27) for the 240 page hard-cover book with around 200 photographs seems very reasonably priced. But registering and using the Polish crowd-funding site might need the help of a Polish speaker and charges for converting currency may add to the cost.
Don’t let my comments about needing a Polish speaker put you off. It looks to be a very nice book and it isn’t too difficult to order online.
I have just managed it. I couldn’t get the site to let me pay with Google Chrome, but it works fine with Firefox. I looked at the pages using Google Translate when I wasn’t sure what to do, and chose PayPal as my payment option. I set up an account first on the site, and put in my address, but I don’t think that was really necessary – they will get it through Paypal.
I was then given the choice of selecting English as my language which made things a little easier. I could chose to pay using a credit card (Visa etc) or my Paypal account, and took the later. The book cost 150 zloty which through Paypal was £27.60 (though my Paypal account is actually in US dollars.) I expect I may have to pay a little more later for postage as I couldn’t see any way to add that.