Solo exhibition Vojislav Lukovic

Autor’s Speech

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PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE MINE – LIGHT FROM THE DARKNESS

In the depths of a mine shaft, where the darkness is denser than night, the author-photographer chooses not to use flash, nor any artificial lighting other than what miners use every day –

light from the helmets. This decision is not a technical whim, but a deep artistic intention: to depict

the mine as it really is – raw, dark, but also full of life.

Despite the darkness, the mining pit is not black and white. The photographer feels it and sees it. Sweat on the cheek of miners has a silvery hue under the light of the lamp. Reflection of light on rails intersects darkness. The blue steel of the tools and the brown rust of the metal hoops clash in contrast. Moist wall of minerals of various colors covered with a root bundle of unknown vegetation that survives underground creates a large-format abstract image in the harmony of darkness. All this suggests that color exists, even where we would least expect it.

That is why the author consciously rejects the black-and-white aesthetic, even though it is often the first association with the mining ambience. He doesn’t want to beautify, but he doesn’t want to reduce reality to the contrasts of light and dark. His color photographs breathe the weight of the air filled with coal dust, the creaking of the metal wagons, the fatigue, the strength and the silence that echoes when the lamp goes out.

A photograph taken in such conditions carries the truthfulness of the moment – no light enters the outside world to “fix” it. Everything that can be seen is illuminated only by a lamp on the helmet, with a bright light. Every shadow is real. Every reflection is true.

This series of photographs does not aspire to sensationalism or a romantic depiction of the subterranean of the world. It silently witnesses the difficulty of the work in the mine as she invites the viewer to pause, to see what is usually overlooked – that darkness is not emptiness, but a space in which color lives in its most sincere, humble form.

 Vojislav Luković, “Earth, Sweat, Coal”, Vojislav Luković, Belgrade, 2025.