The portrait series "Stein am Rhein, 2016," by Goran Potkonjak was created on the occasion of the exhibition "Velimir Ilišević. Between Halt and New Beginning" at the Museum zu Allerheiligen, Schaffhausen in 2016/17. The photo series is more than just a collection of portraits of the artist Velimir Ilišević, who lives in the small town on the Rhine in the canton of Schaffhausen. On one hand, they are portraits of the friend and colleague Velimir Ilišević, while on the other hand, they also function as landscape pictures, and with the choice of black and white photography, they also serve as mood images. These were created during several walks in the spring of 2016. The background always included the Rhine, the local floodplain landscape, and the characteristic buildings of the region in the picture.
The main figure is Velimir Ilišević; the draftsman and painter hails from Bosnia, where he was born in 1965. At the age of 24, he settles in northern Switzerland in the canton of Schaffhausen. While his early life is connected with the Sana River in northwestern Bosnia, since 1989, the Rhine has been influential in his life and the atmosphere of his new home. The river is often the subject of his paintings. Goran Potkonjak takes up this important theme of Ilišević's with his photo series and translates it into his own visual language. The river appears in many photos as a background and a generator of moods. The water surfaces appear differently – sometimes moving, sometimes calm and reflective.
Just as Velimir Ilišević repeatedly makes art history the subject of his paintings, familiarizing himself with the achievements and history of his painting colleagues by experimenting with them himself, elements of photography and art history can also be recognized in Goran Potkonjak's photographs: "Stein am Rhein – May 25, 2016" shows the barely recognizable profile of Velimir Ilišević's head, as if he were alluding to Henri Cartier-Bresson's famous sequence of photos of Alberto Giacometti during the installation of an exhibition at Galerie Maeght in 1961. Here, as there, the artist is recognizable, but at the same time, something else comes to the forefront. The artist disappears behind his work, or, as in the case of Ilišević, the photo simultaneously highlights a landscape.
This also applies to another example from the series: "Stein am Rhein – May 16, 2016." The protagonist strides through the forest. The lighting is chosen so that he remains largely in the dark - behind him is a clearing bathed in bright light. The figure, striding with confidence and belief in the future, is in a different environment, yet - it is very similar to the posture Joseph Beuys adopts in his famous poster "La rivoluzione siamo noi," which he published in 1972.
Thus, the actual intentions and possible associations intertwine in the works of Goran Potkonjak and Velimir Ilišević.