Evgen Bavcar

THE BLIND PHOTOGRAPHER
By Benjamin Mayer-Foulkes


Why would a blind man want to wear transparent
eyeglasses? Why would he wish to walk the streets of
Paris dressed in the same black hat, cape and red scarf
worn by Aristide Bruant as depicted by Toulouse-Lautrec?
Why would he want to risk speaking on a radio program
about paintings which he has never actually seen? And
why would he desire to take photographs?

The name of this man is Evgen Bavcar, he is an art
photographer and he is completely blind. Born in 1946
in a small Slovenian town near Venice, he lost both eyes
before he was twelve in two consecutive accidents.
Four years later, he lay his hands on a camera for the
first time, to take a snapshot of the girl with whom he
was in love: as he recalls, The pleasure I felt then
resulted from my having robbed and fixed on a film
something that did not belong to me, I secretly
discovered I could possess something that I could
not see.

Bavcar studied History at the University of Ljubljana,
and Philosophy at the Sorbonne. Having settled in Paris
he embarked on an academic career, and intensified his
photographic activities. In 1988 he was named Official
Photographer of the City of Light’s Photography Month.
Since then his work has been widely exhibited, particularly
in Europe. Walter Aue, the acclaimed Berlin poet, considers
that after Niepce, Fox Talbot and Daguerre, Bavcar is "the
fourth inventor of photography".

Bavcar’s work addresses the relations between vision,
blindness and invisibility: My task is the reunion of the
visible and the invisible worlds, photography allows me
to pervert the established method of perception amongst
those who see and those who don’t.


The complete article in http://zonezero.com/EXPOSICIONES/fotografos/bavcar/#