The opening of the exhibition of Branimir Karanović, Emeritus Professor of the Faculty of Applied Arts from Belgrade, will be held on June 7 (Wednesday), at 20 pm, in the Rudić Gallery in Skopje.

Branimir Karanović graduated from the Faculty of Applied Arts in 1974 in the class of prof. Bozidar Dzmerković in Belgrade. He received his master's degree in graphics in 1976 at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade in the class of prof. Marko Krsmanovic. From 1978 to 1997, he was a professor of photography at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, and from 1996, a professor of photography at the graphic department of the Faculty of Applied Arts in Belgrade. He deals with graphics and photography. Since 1974, he has been actively exhibiting graphics and photographs at individual and group exhibitions in the country and abroad. He is the winner of numerous awards and has held more than 40 exhibitions of photographs and graphics.

As an author who belongs to a generation of artists who introduced a new view of photographic art within its artistic status, Karanović during the nineties of the 20th century turned to the urban as an inexhaustible source of motifs and began to explore the documentary record as a function of artistic meaning.

Exploring the relationship between the visual arts (graphic discipline) and the photographic (document/art) approach, he photographs, registers, notes all marginal artifacts, sketches of social characteristics, but also reflections of the author's thinking. Logically following his own instinct, Karanović explores all the visual segments he finds in the environment, notices them and recycles them into new meanings.

The post-structuralist principle, which is often the basis of his newer works, is also reflected in the photographic (photo-graphic) cycle "I watch where I tread", which with its witty name also associates the dual values ​​of the content itself.

Of course, this series was not created autonomously in relation to Karanović's previous work, but is a further continuation of his involvement in the interpretation of photography as a medium that sometimes exists on the margins of artistic disciplines and is interactive with graphic processes. In the case of the "Watching Where I Step" series, Karanovic highlights the interpretation of the photograph as a ready-made object/document with a double meaning with its associative content. As such, with its appeal and visual dynamism, it draws the viewer's attention to the content found and recorded, as well as to the content interpreted by the author himself.

Viewed chronologically, Karanović's series indicate a linearly developed interest and expansion of the author's idea, which involves him, almost obsessively, in his long-term work. Their content is obviously interpreted based on the author's personal filter through irony and a witty approach, but also a lucid observation of everyday life. In addition to filming, Karanovic certainly highlights the attributes of contemporary photographic art: visual appeal, symbolism of the recorded content, attractiveness of the recorded material.

Branimir Karanović's concrete creative oeuvre reflects the thesis of merging the photographic document and its artistic value. As the artist himself states, the realization of this photographic series was created chronologically, linearly building on his previous work, which always balanced between graphics and photography. This also reflects the author's attitude towards the essence of the photographic medium, which sometimes balances on the border between art and mechanical, documentary record, says the text of the exhibition catalogue.