Braco Dimitrijević – Casual Passer-by I met at 11.09 AM, 1971
What is the Casual Passer-by project?
Braco Dimitrijević’sCasual Passer-By series are a series of canvas-based photographs created as from 1971. The works feature large-scale images of people that the artist met in the streets. Each piece comes with the exact time and place where the artist met with the person.
However, he did not always put the exact date. These portraits of this groundbreaking project were then placed on some of the prominent positions on the facades of high traffic areas such as the museum, advertisement displays, or the underground train service.
Braco Dimitrijević – Casual Passer-by I met at 3.01 pm, Philadelphia, April 9, 2007Braco Dimitrijević – Casual Passer-by I met at 3.01 pm, Philadelphia, April 9, 2007Braco Dimitrijević – Casual Passer-by I met at 2.09 PM, 2.20 PM, Rome, 2004, Rome, photo: Galleria Pino Casagrande
The idea behind it
The idea behind the large-format photographs and the choice of the location to display the images was to mislead the viewers. The people who came across the pictures assumed that the picture was that of a famous person, a celebrity, or a prominent political figure. Within the communist world, large-scale images were a preserve of the political class and those whose ideologies influenced the government of the day.
Braco Dimitrijevic – The Casual Paserby I Met, 1969, photographic enlargement on vinyl, installation view, MACBA Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona, 2011, photo: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) by MACBABraco Dimitrijević – Casual Passer-by I met at 12.27 pm, 2016, inkjet, print 456 x 240 cm, Pera Museum, Turkey, Istanbul, photo: Uğur AtaçBraco Dimitrijević – Casual Passer-by, Vijećnica, National Library, Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina, 2010
Conclusion
The Casual Passer-By series aimed to reveal the implicit cultural and social codes used to serve the hierarchies of power. Years after leaving Zagreb, Braco Dimitrijević continued to use large-scale photographs on canvas to respond to other cultural and political movements.
In an interview, Braco Dimitrijevic mentioned that his aim was not to make accidentally-met people famous. His artworks embody the principles of choices from a broad spectrum of possibilities and that of chance.
Art is any human activity, that contains an idea other than its utilitarian purpose …
Braco Dimitrijević – Casual Passer-by I met at 3.41 pm, Paris 1999, Casual passer-by I met at 3.47 pm, Paris 1999, Les Champs-Elysées, Paris, 1999-2000Braco Dimitrijević – Casual Passer-by I met at 3.47pm, Paris, 1999Braco Dimitrijević – Casual Passer-by I met at 1.14pm, London 1978Braco Dimitrijević – Casual Passer-by I met at 1.43pm, Venice, 1976, Venice BiennaleBraco Dimitrijević – Casual Passer-by I met at 1.43pm, Venice, 1976, Venice BiennaleBraco Dimitrijević – Casual Passer-By I met at 1.56pm, Berlin, 1976Braco Dimitrijević – Casual Passer-by I met at 2.25 PM, Berlin, 1976Braco Dimitrijević – Casual Passer-by I Met at 6.17pm , Berlin, 1976Braco Dimitrijević – Casual Passer-by I met at 9.12 AM. 1976, Städtisches Museum, Mönchengladbach, GermanyBraco Dimitrijević – Casual Passer-by I met at 2.08, Milan 1974Braco Dimitrijević – Casual Passer-by I met at 11.28am, London, October 1972Braco Dimitrijević – Casual Passer-by I met at 11.09 A.M. Paris, 1971, 448 x 352 cmBraco Dimitrijević – Casual Passer-by, Zagreb, Croatia, 1971
All images by Braco Dimitrijević unless otherwise noted.
