Breda Beban
Home

Photography

“She did not own professional equipment or large format cameras. Instead, she always carried a small portable digital camera to capture situations that she found appealing and interesting. She once told me that she had been taking photographs for a while but hadn’t considered them as elements of her/their artistic practice, simply because that was not something what was expected from her/them. However, following Horvatić’s death (1997) she purposely started building a body of work based on photography.”

Excerpt from Miha Colner, “The woman with a photo camera”, in “Breda’s Lesson”, Trieste Contemporanea and Juliet, Trieste 2018.

Breda Beban, Arrivals (2000): An unmade bed with blue pillows and a yellow coverlet in a dim room.
Arrivals 2000
Breda Beban, An Exile Encounters Baby Jesus (2000): An open roadside shelter with objects illuminated inside.
An Exile Encounters Baby Jesus 2000
Breda Beban, I Lay on the Bed Waiting ... (2000): Two unmade single beds beside a dark window.
I Lay on the Bed Waiting for His Heart to Stop Beating 2000
Breda Beban, Miracle of Death (2000): A striped bedspread beneath a warm lamp.
Miracle of Death 2000
Breda Beban, Airport Chapels (2003): People kneeling in a green prayer room.
Airport Chapels 2003
Breda Beban, Paths (2003): A worn path across bare ground beside a large city building.
Paths 2003
Breda Beban, Arte Vivo (2008–2011): a couple kissing with a child beneath a bridge, beside a woman holding an Arte Vivo sign.
Arte Vivo 2008–2011

Arrivals

2000

Arrivals is a series of eight sets of four photographs evoking in an uncomplicated and explicit way of absence felt by those inhabiting the space between an unbroken longing and a broken sense of belonging. Each set of photographs depict a picture of a bed, a window in bedroom and a picture of scene from a window. These photo-works are literally a story of an escape, of a journey and of arrivals. The photographs have been selected from hundreds of images taken by Beban during the period 1991-1997, a particularly significant time in the life of the artist, marked by tragic events on a personal level.

Breda Beban, Arrivals: Fibbiano Montanino, 1991, photograph 1 of four.Breda Beban, Arrivals: Fibbiano Montanino, 1991, photograph 2 of four.Breda Beban, Arrivals: Fibbiano Montanino, 1991, photograph 3 of four.Breda Beban, Arrivals: Fibbiano Montanino, 1991, photograph 4 of four.
Fibbiano Montanino 1991

This series of photographs is part of the I Lay on the Bed Waiting for his Heart to Stop Beating series.

Format: C-type prints

Series of 32 photographs

Locations: Fibbiano Montanino, Italy; Toronto, Canada; Sao Paolo, Brazil; Dresden, Germany; Liverpool, UK.

An Exile Encounters Baby Jesus

2000

An Exile Encounters Baby Jesus is a series of six photographs taken in Fibbiano Montanino, Tuscany, in September 1991. After the war broke in former Yugoslavia Beban left Croatia between bomb raids wit one suitcase and no money, smuggled to Italy and offered shelter in a village in the hills of Tuscany.

“Our neighbour in the village would come every morning bringing food. I would open the door, my eyes swollen from a night spent crying. One morning, at sunrise, I went for a walk. Untouched by the beauty of the village, I found myself taking photographs of the sheds built by local farmers. When I came back, our neighbour was waiting for me. She said that the pain I was going through was God’s way of telling me I had encountered baby Jesus”. (quote from the catalogue Still, 2000).

Breda Beban, An Exile Encounters Baby Jesus: Fibbiano Montanino, Tuscany, 1991, photograph 1 of six.Breda Beban, An Exile Encounters Baby Jesus: Fibbiano Montanino, Tuscany, 1991, photograph 2 of six.Breda Beban, An Exile Encounters Baby Jesus: Fibbiano Montanino, Tuscany, 1991, photograph 3 of six.Breda Beban, An Exile Encounters Baby Jesus: Fibbiano Montanino, Tuscany, 1991, photograph 4 of six.Breda Beban, An Exile Encounters Baby Jesus: Fibbiano Montanino, Tuscany, 1991, photograph 5 of six.Breda Beban, An Exile Encounters Baby Jesus: Fibbiano Montanino, Tuscany, 1991, photograph 6 of six.
Series of photographs taken in Fibbiano Montanino, Tuscany, 1991.

Colour prints mounted on aluminium, 152 x 102 cm each

I Lay on the Bed Waiting for his Heart to Stop Beating

2000

I Lay on the Bed Waiting for his Heart to Stop Beating is a series of photographs Breda Beban was taking after emigrated with her collaborator and later partner, Hrvoje Horvatić. Living the life like nomads, regardless sleeping in other people’s beds, or rented rooms, they knew that soon they would have to move on, without leaving any trace of themselves behind.

Every morning in each new location Beban would photograph first the empty bed, then the window of the room, then the view through the window. The last photographs of the series were taken in December 1997 in Homerton hospital in London, where Hrvoje Horvatić prematurely died of chickenpox at the age of 39.

Breda Beban, I Lay on the Bed Waiting for his Heart to Stop Beating: Homerton Hospital, London, December 1997, photograph 1 of four.Breda Beban, I Lay on the Bed Waiting for his Heart to Stop Beating: Homerton Hospital, London, December 1997, photograph 2 of four.Breda Beban, I Lay on the Bed Waiting for his Heart to Stop Beating: Homerton Hospital, London, December 1997, photograph 3 of four.Breda Beban, I Lay on the Bed Waiting for his Heart to Stop Beating: Homerton Hospital, London, December 1997, photograph 4 of four.
Homerton Hospital, London, December 1997

This series of photographs includes the Arrivals series of photographs.

Series of 36 photographs taken in locations: Fibbiano Montanino, Italy; Toronto, Canada; Sao Paolo, Brazil; Dresden, Germany; Liverpool, UK; London, UK (1991/1997)

Colour prints mounted on aluminium, 30,5 x 20,5 cm each

The Miracle of Death

2000

The Miracle of Death is a series of six photographs taken in the apartment where Breda Beban and Hrvoje Horvatić lived. After Hrvoje’s body was cremated in London, she decided to take his ashes back home to Zagreb. Before leaving for the airport, she photographed the cardboard box containing his ashes in different parts of their London apartment.

On the way to the airport, while holding the cardboard on her lap, Breda remembered what Anna Andreevna Achmatova, the Russian poet said on her death bed, that she was getting ready for the miracle of death.

"Breda Beban's work epitomises the distinct capacity of a work of art to describe life simply and without obvious elaboration, and to invest it with the profundity of human emotion". Charlotte Cotton, The Photograph as Contemporary Art (Thames & Hudson, 2004).

Breda Beban, The Miracle of Death: London, 1998, photograph 1 of six.Breda Beban, The Miracle of Death: London, 1998, photograph 2 of six.Breda Beban, The Miracle of Death: London, 1998, photograph 3 of six.Breda Beban, The Miracle of Death: London, 1998, photograph 4 of six.Breda Beban, The Miracle of Death: London, 1998, photograph 5 of six.Breda Beban, The Miracle of Death: London, 1998, photograph 6 of six.
Series of Photographs taken in London in 1998

Colour prints mounted on aluminium

Size: 102 x 152 cm each

Airport Chapels

2003

Airport Chapels is a series of five photographs representing the praying areas in international airports, free from any religious reference, but rich of intimacy and spirituality.

Breda Beban, Airport Chapels (2003): prayer area in an international airport, photograph 1 of five.Breda Beban, Airport Chapels (2003): prayer area in an international airport, photograph 2 of five.Breda Beban, Airport Chapels (2003): prayer area in an international airport, photograph 3 of five.Breda Beban, Airport Chapels (2003): prayer area in an international airport, photograph 4 of five.Breda Beban, Airport Chapels (2003): prayer area in an international airport, photograph 5 of five.
Series of Photographs taken in various international airports

Colour prints mounted on aluminium

Size: 100 x 150 cm each

Paths

2003

Paths is a series of six photographs inspired by ‘desire paths’ formed in urban environments by repeated footfall.

This series of photographs on light-boxes was staged at the exhibition Touchdown at the 13th century St. Augustine’s tower in central Hackney London in 2003.

Breda Beban, Paths (2003): photograph 1 of six in the series of urban paths.Breda Beban, Paths (2003): photograph 2 of six in the series of urban paths.Breda Beban, Paths (2003): photograph 3 of six in the series of urban paths.Breda Beban, Paths (2003): photograph 4 of six in the series of urban paths.Breda Beban, Paths (2003): photograph 5 of six in the series of urban paths.Breda Beban, Paths (2003): photograph 6 of six in the series of urban paths.
Series of photographs is taken in locations: Belgrade, Zagreb, Wien, London.

Arte Vivo

Series of photographs, 2008 – 2011

The series of thirteen photographs titled Arte Vivo was triggered by Beban’s childhood imagination and by Argentinean artist Alberto Greco’s 1962 performance “Vivo Dito”. (“Vivo Dito is an adventure of the real” – A. Greco)

Arte Vivo series was included in the exhibitions: Things to do in Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, (2008), solo exhibition Complicity of Gestures at Kalfayan Galleries, Athens (2011), homage The Adventure of the Real, Studio Tommaseo, Trieste (2012), Adventure of the Real at MSU Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, Rijeka, Osijek (2013).

Breda Beban, Arte Vivo: Trieste, photograph 1 of 5.
Trieste
Breda Beban, Arte Vivo: Buenos Aires, photograph 1 of 3.
Buenos Aires
Breda Beban, Arte Vivo: London, photograph 1 of 1.
London
Breda Beban, Arte Vivo: Athens, photograph 1 of 1.
Athens
Breda Beban, Arte Vivo: Tbilisi, photograph 1 of 3.
Tbilisi
Reference photograph of Alberto Greco’s Vivo Dito performance.
Alberto Greco Vivo Dito

Production & Photography: Breda Beban

Photographed on location in Buenos Aires, Trieste, Tbilisi, London, Athens

Colour & b/w

Photographs size ca. 54 x 75 cm + frame

Editions: 5 + 2 a.e.