In the beginning of the 1990es when the media and our heads started to be bombarded by the globalization myth, only rare people could ask themselves what the result of the process that the world wanted to the present bigger than I really was actually meant: instead of a pioneering discovery of phenomena and essential approximation of various cultures and shapes, we have almost fully received a dangerous model. By bringing in machines and technical toys, the illusion of everybody getting the same chance has also been brought in. The small alleys in Istanbul, Islamabad or any corner of the East essentially remained the same. The Mackintosh commercial did not turn them into a promised land, but those alleys, those people, cats, bicycles, mobile phones, all of those objects on them, have appeared more often before our eyes with the “democratization” of the Internet and the growth of technical possibilities of photography. This is credit of the people like Amer Kapetanovic, who, after “working on” the war in their country, moved on, trying, armed with new techniques and essential knowledge to meet – some yesterday’s versions of themselves. Yes, when a man writes, regardless of how big his audience is, he does that first of all for himself. This is somehow similar with photography, which is nothing else – and what is bigger than that – but writing with light. The eternal saying that the battle is not fought by the shiny weapon, but by the heart of the hero can by any means be used in the case of camera brand and price when it comes to Amer Kapetanovic: I think that he is the only photographer whom I have not asked about his camera brand, its price and technical performances. This is like in music: you don’t care what someone plays, if you trust him/her. What is written on Amer’s photographs is that the essential problems of the world have not been solved, although it has been given new clothes. And the end of this story is, anyway, known by everybody: the emperor is naked. When he looks more naked sometimes than he really is, it is the photographic skill. Amer’s new “clothes” when meeting himself. In the world that has permanently been diminished by globalization, but also enriched, and thus made bigger, with people with talents. Like himself.
the art is inside
