ARCHITECTURE THROUGH THE LENS OF VIRGINIA VRECL

We kindly invite you to the opening of the exhibition on Monday, 13 November 2017 at 8 pm in DESSA gallery.

Architectural photography caught between the objective and subjective views

For a complete experience and understanding, architectural works need to be experienced live. If this is not an option, we make use of certain media which present such work in various ways: a sketch, a drawing, a plan, a model, a visualisation, a film, and others. However, the leading role among techniques of the (re)representation of realised architecture is held by photography. It represents architectural objects in the most credible way, perhaps also because it seems objective and because this is the easiest way to communicate its messages to the public. And yet, buildings, interiors, squares, parks or cities cannot be depicted in a completely objective way: depending on the approach, at least a smidgen of interpretation remains in the hands (or in the eyes and the lens) of the author (photographer), i.e. the subject. Creative work, including photographers' work, hides a part of authors' special/personal features: his or her fine art and human sensibility, expertise, temper and experience, view of life and credo etc. Therefore, it is not unusual that the best architectural photographers are also architects, as they have a comparative advantage over other professions due to their complete understanding of the siting of volumes, and of the inner structure, construction and composition principles of buildings.

Virginia Vrecl is an architect who directs her creative potential from project work to architectural photography. It seems that the closest to her artistic nature are frozen fragments of time caught in abstract images of architectural details: sometimes of an enigmatic measuring device, with blurred materiality, lit up with a sunbeam or outlined with shadow lines etc. Other architectural compositions are also diverse, but attuned and subdued. At the exhibition, they are structured into the following thematic sets: urban spaces . buildings . interiors . details - abstractions.

Aleksander S. Ostan

Virginia Vrecl, architect and architectural photographer

graduated architecture at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Ljubljana in 1997.

Virginia worked as a freelance architect with several architectural offices. After passing the state professional examinitaion for the architectural engineer licence in 1999, she began her independent career as licensed arhitects. As member of the Chamber of Architecture and Spatial Planning of Slovenia and The Architects’ Society of Ljubljana, she took part in group retrospective exhibitions as an architect and architectural photographer.

Virginia developed an interest in architectural photography while exploring architecture on numerous study visits and extensive world travels.

Her architectural photographs have been published in Slovenian magazines and newspapers, as well as several national and international internet portals.

After her first solo photography exhibition,presented as part of the 2014 Piran Days of Architecture, she presented in 2015 in the Maribor House of Architecture, in the Slovenian Cultural Centre Korotan in Vienna, at the Small Gallery of Cankarjev dom in Ljubljana and presented as part of  Photonic Moments 2016 - Month of Photography (Gallery Photon) in Arhiteka - NUK.

curators: Aleksander S. Ostan, Maja Ivanič

design of invitation cards and cataloguese: Virginia Vrecl

print of invitation cards and catalogues: Matformat

print of exhibition panels: O.K.VIR

translation of A. S. Ostan text: Laura Cuder Turk