Goranka Matić
– (1949 Maribor) graduated from art history, Faculty of Philosophy, Belgrade. She grow up in a family that liked photography, nature and travels, which determined her later life and work. From the beginnings of Student Cultural Center in Belgrade (1971) Matić is part of the artistic and curatorial community of the Gallery of SKC, where she worked as a curatorial assistant of Art program and later as a curator of the Gallery Happy New Art.
Starting 1980. she turns to her photographic carrier and photographs for the important Yugoslav magazines and periodicals: Džuboks, Start, Svijet, Omladinske novine, Duga, Delo Polet, Moment, Beorama, Ritam, and New Moment. Between 1990 and 2006 she is the editor for photography of the weekly Vreme; between 2006 and 2010 of the daily Politika.
Matić was professor of photojournalism at the Faculty of Political Sciences, Belgrade and currently teaches at the Faculty of Media and Communication, Belgrade.
The Portraits of Women by Matić, was part of the art program of the famous international conference Comrade Woman: Women’s Question – A New Approach? (Drug-ca Žena: Žensko Pitanje – Novi Pristup?), which took place at the Student Cultural Centre (SKC), Belgrade, in 1978. It was the first autonomous second-wave feminist meeting initiated in non-Western-European context, and in a socialist country that gathered a number of significant feminist theorists and artists from both sides of “the curtain”.
The process of photographing the Portraits of Women12345678910 was conceptualized as a play between documenting and staging—in parallel to being photographed, women could decide how they would like to be presented by answering the following four questions: How old are you?; What name you would like to have?; Where would you like to live?; What occupation do you desire?
Photographed women were at various stages of life, of different experiences, professions and cultural backgrounds. The youngest participants were in the stage right after their first menstrual cycle, while the oldest participants were sometimes over eighty years old. The oldest “commrade woman”, photographed while selling fruits on the Green Market, offered quite a curious answer to the question of employment, stating that she preferrs to be occupied by nothing—that her desired “job” would be to sit and rest.
The Portraits of Women included the photographs of some of the initiators and participants of the Comrade Woman conference, such as Dunja Blažević, Ljubica Stanivuk and Žarana Papić. Matić is also appearing in the frieze of the Portraits. Her fictional name is Ira Fasbinder, the combination of the name of her mother and the surname of her favourite director. She presented herself as the thirty-year-old Madam of the Brothel in Budapest11. In the photo we see Ira, a young woman with short hair, dressed in a neat shirt, a tie, waistcoat, and jacket, with a cigarette hanging from the corner of her mouth.
Matić, today a significant photographer working in Belgrade and exhibiting internationally, was at the time a young art historian who realized her concept in collaboration with Nebojša Čankarović, one of the photographers employed in SKC.
This photographic adventure will obviously trigger her later carrier of one of the most significant photojournalists in Serbia – the photographer of the music bands of the New Wave scene in the 1980s12131415161718 and the photographer of the politicians and political actors of the civic scene in the 1990s, including the civic protests against Milošević regime1920212223242526.
Matić’s approach to photojournalism was always artistic, she insists on the psychological, formal and affective aspect of the portrayal: “Functions never made me nervous… When I photographed Mesić and Drnovšek, I said: would you sit on the edge of the table, for the composition… and my people would say – he’s the president of the presidency! But if you are not nervous around a person, and that person is not nervous around you, as you are taking their photograph you can give yourself some space, and make them feel at ease”
In paralell to her photojournalistic carrier, Matić continues with her feminist artistic practice. She develops the series of photographs called Matrilineal Mirror in which she structures her familly past anew, using the technology of montage and rephotographing2728.
Her photo series Slowly does the Sutjeska flow (2003)2930313233343536, a research realised in collaboration with the writer of this entry, represents one of the first contemporary returns to antifascist partisan struggle in former Yugoslavia, commenting the destruction of monuments to socialism during and after anti-Yugoslav wars in the 1990s as well as the politics of antifascism today.
Texts is written by Jelena Vesić (2022).
1Portraits of Women, photos, 1978.2Portraits of Women, photos, 1978.
3Portraits of Women, photos, 1978.
4Portraits of Women, photos, 1978.
5Portraits of Women, photos, 1978.
6Portraits of Women, photos, 1978.
7Portraits of Women, exhibition installation, Student Cultural Centre – Belgrade, 1978.
8Portraits of Women, exhibition installation, Student Cultural Centre – Belgrade, 1978.
9Portraits of Women, exhibition installation, Student Cultural Centre – Belgrade, 1978.
10Portraits of Women, exhibition installation, retrospective by Goranka Matić Crowd Experience, Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade, 2021.
11Ira Fasbinder, portrait of Goranka Matić, Portraits of Women, 1978.
12Momčilo Bajagić Bajaga for the Album Cover of Sa druge strane jastuka, 1985, hand-coloured photograph.
13Band Idoli, Atelje 212, Belgrade, 1982, hand-coloured photograph.
14Band Disciplina kičme, Belgrade, 1983, hand-coloured photograph.
15Concert by Idoli in Kulušić, Zagreb, May 1982.
16Band Električni orgazam, Belgrade, 1986.
17Concert by Haustor, Pinki Hall, Zemun, December 1980.
18Goranka Matić and the band EKV with a group of friends, Student Cultural Centre, Belgrade, 1989.
19Women in Black against war, Belgrade, 1992.
20Black Ribbon, Belgrade, 1992.
21Terazije Fountain, Student Protest, 1991.
22Demonstrations, Belgrade, March 9, 1991.
23Demonstrations, Belgrade, March 9, 1991.
24The First Belgrade Barricade, Belgrade, March 1992.
25Anti-war protest in support of Sarajevo, Belgrade, April 1992.
26Protest during the proclamation of Slobodan Milošević as President of FR Yugoslavia (Jelena Šantić), Belgrade, 1997.
27Goranka Matić, Three Generations.
28Goranka Matić, Ira and Ira Fasbinder.
29Slowly does the Sutjeska flow, 2003.
30Slowly does the Sutjeska flow, 2003.
31Slowly does the Sutjeska flow, 2003.
32Slowly does the Sutjeska flow, 2003.
33Slowly does the Sutjeska flow, 2003.
34Slowly does the Sutjeska flow, 2003.
35Slowly does the Sutjeska flow, 2003.
36Slowly does the Sutjeska flow, 2003.
– (1949, Maribor) diplomirala je na katedri za Istoriju umetnosti, na Filozofskom fakultetu u Beogradu. Odrasla je u porodici koja je volela fotografiju, prirodu i putovanja, što je odredilo njen kasniji život i rad. Od osnivanja Studentskog kulturnog centra u Beogradu (1971. godine) Goranka Matić je deo umetničke i kustoske zajednice Galerije SKC, gde je radila kao asistentkinja kustosa umetničkog programa, i kasnije kao kustoskinja galerije Happy New Art.
Od 1980. godine, posvetila se svojoj fotografskoj karijeri i fotografijama, radeći za značajne jugoslovenske časopise: Džuboks, Start, Svijet, Omladinske novine, Duga, Delo Polet, Moment, Beorama, Ritam, i New Moment. Između 1990. i 2006. godine radi kao urednica fotografija za nedeljnik Vreme, a od 2006. do 2010. za dnevni list Politika.
Bila je profesorka foto žurnalistike na Fakultetu političkih nauka u Beogradu, a trenutno predaje na Fakultetu za medije i komunikacije u Beogradu.
Portreti žena Goranke Matić, bili su deo umetničkog programa poznate međunarodne konferencije Comrade Woman: Women’s Question – A New Approach? (Drug-ca Žena: Žensko Pitanje – Novi Pristup?), koja se odvijala u SKC u Beogradu 1978. godine. To je bilo prvi samostalni drugotalasni feministički sastanak iniciran u nezapadnoevropskom kontekstu, i to u socijalističkoj zemlji, koji je sakupio veći broj značajnih feminističkih teoretičaki i umetnica sa obe strane “zavese”.
Proces fotografisanja Portreta žena123345678910 bio je konceptualizovan kao igra između dokumentovanja i inscenacije – uporedo sa fotografisanjem, žene su mogle da odluče kako bi želele da budu predstavljene odgovarajući na sledeća četiri pitanja: Koliko imaš godina?; Kako bi volela da se zoveš?; Gde bi volela da živiš?; Čime bi volela da se baviš?
Fotografisane žene su bile u različitim fazama života, različitih iskustava, profesija i kulturnog porekla. Najmlađe učesnice bile su u etapi odmah nakon prvog menstrualnog ciklusa, dok su najstarije učesnice bile ponekad starije od osamdeset godina. Najstarija “drug-ca”, fotografisana dok je prodavala voće na pijaci, ponudila je zanimljiv odgovor na pitanje čime bi volela da se bavi, rekavši da bi najradije da ne radi ništa – da je njen idealan “posao” da sedi i odmara.
Portreti žena uključuju fotografije nekih od osnivačica i učesnica konferenicje Drug-ca Žena, poput Dunje Blažević, Ljubice Stanivuk i Žarane Papić. Goranka se takođe pojavljuje u okvirima Portreta. Njen pseudonim je Ira Fasbinder, kombinacija imena njene majke, i prezimena njenog omiljenog reditelja. Predstavlja se kao tridesetogodišnja Madam iz javne kuće u Budimpešti11. Na fotografiji vidimo Iru, mladu ženu sa kratkom kosom, obučenu u urednu košulju, kravatu, prsluk i sako, sa cigaretom u uglu usana.
Goranka, danas značajna fotografkinja koji radi u Beogradu i izlaže u inostranstvu, u to vreme je bila mlada istoričarka umetnosti koja je svoj koncept realizovala u saradnji sa Nebojšom Čankarovićem, jednim od fotografa zaposlenih u SKC-u.
Ova fotografska avantura će svakako pokrenuti njenu kasniju karijeru jedne od najznačajnijih fotoreporterki u Srbiji – fotografisala je bendove Novog talasa 1980ih12131415161718, političare i političke aktere 1990ih, uključujući grašanske proteste protiv Miloševićevog režima1920212223242526.
Njen pristup fotožurnalistici je uvek bio umetnički, insistirala je na psihološkom, formalnom i afektivnom pristupu: „Nisam imala osećaj treme prema funkciji… i kad sam slikala Mesića i Drnovšeka, kažem: hoćete sesti na ivicu stola da ukomponujem… a ovi moji kažu – predsednik predsednistva! Ako nemaš tremu prema osobi i on nema tremu prema tebi, dok ga fotografišeš, napravis lufta da i sebe i njega rasteretiš“
Paralelno sa fotožurnalističkom karijerom, Goranka Matić je nastavila svoju feminističku praksu. Razvila je seriju fotografija “Matrilinearno ogledalo” u kojoj restruktuira svoju porodičnu istoriju, koristeći tehnologiju montaže i ponovnog fotografisanja2728.
Njena serija fotografija Sporo teče Sutjeska (2003)2930313233343536, istraživanje realizovano u saradnji sa autorkom ovog zapisa, predstavlja jedan od prvih savremenih povrataka antifašističkoj partizanskoj borbi u bivšoj Jugoslaviji, komentarišući uništavanje spomenika socijalizmu tokom i nakon antijugoslovenskih ratova 1990-ih kao i politiku antifašizma danas.
Tekst je napisla Jelena Vesić (2022).
1Portreti žena, fotografije, 1978.
