Željko Jerman

Who was Željko Jerman?

Željko Jerman, was a Croatian photographer who experimented the possibilities of photography as a medium.

He was one of the founding members of the informal neo-avantgarde Grupa šestorice autora, together with Vladimir Martek, Boris Demur, Mladen Stilinović, Sven Stilinović and Fedomir Vučemilović. The group was active in Zagreb from 1975 to 1979. Together with the Group of Six Authors Jerman made action-exhibitions in public spaces for example, the bathing-area on the river Sava, the Republic Square and the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb, in addition to exhibitions in galleries. They organized a total of 21 action-exhibitions during the group’s active period. In that period Jerman experimented with photography producing grey, unfocused photographs. He also created photo collages, making further interventions with the media by using different photo techniques, photo chemicals, texts, drawings, colours etc. He would also frequently cut and partially burn the final products. Further experimentation lead him to apply chemicals directly onto the photo surface without the use of a camera. He also became interested in multimedia art and started using text more frequently in his work. One of his most famous installations is This is not my world, a sentence that he wrote on photo paper with developer in 1976, and exhibited on a street in Belgrade.