Janko Bosch

Janko Bosch

Today I Found a Dead Bird

Hardcover
190mm x 130mm 
192 pages 
93 images 
2019

From the artist:

The images in this book reflect the photographer’s interest in human landscapes and how we interact with our surroundings. The pictures do not focus on a particular country or city, but on the moods of the urban landscapes themselves. Often the pictures seem to tell a deeper story about the photographer’s personal mood and feeling such as emptiness, death and decay. The result is a small book in size but deep and rich in reading experience.

Book review by Dana Stirling |

When you first come across Janko Bosch’s book you first come by a relatively small book with bold pink font on its cover. This cover and size are interesting for a few reasons. First, the contrast of the smaller book with large typeface creates an imbalance of power dynamic between the two which creates curiosity as a viewer. In addition, this bold statement makes you wonder – what type of book would this be? Is it intimate and precious or bold and aggressive? For me, this complexity of not fully knowing what to expect is a great start to any book.

In his work Janko documents everyday life, random objects and odd events that can be encountered on the street. Some objects are obscure, some more mundane, some beautifully sad and other are just, well, bizarre. Each photo is a microcosmos of its own time and space.
As we are not sure where these images were taken, which is something the artist does deliberately, we are able to remove the context of specificities and allow the image to tell a broader story of who we are as people, our understanding of our surroundings and what makes us — us.

I think a big part of what I love about this book is that it is on one hand pretty heavy, serious and sometimes dark but at the same time also pretty whimsical and fun. The use of colored papers, the pink ascents and even the size create a book that brings self-humor and self-awareness of the artist onto the pages of his work.  His images, at large, have a dark and dense color palette. His images feel underexposed but with a very specific intention to it – making the scene slightly more dramatic. This takes places or moments that could be pretty sweet into a new darker mood that shifts our perception of this moment.  

These delicate nuances of design and contrast elevate the work itself and create an overall viewing experience that is fun and deep all at once.

I think we should also appreciate the title of the book itself. A pure statement that is not apologetic but also very cryptic and unclear in its intentions. I think that as photographers we have all come across a dead bird in some way or another. We have probably also all photographed it. There is something both beautiful and appalling in seeing a dead bird (or any other animal) that you can not look away from. It a chance to take a closer glimpse into something that usually is too quick or far from you to enjoy with great detail. I think this title is a perfect capture of the book overall feeling of finding something random and the capturing of it using photography and gives a better understanding of the photographer’s overall mind set when photographing.

Janko’s work is simple, and I do not mean it in a bad way. Simple by definition is ‘easily understood or done; presenting no difficulty’. His work is simple in the sense that it is made effortlessly by the artist (or so it seems as a viewer) and with that same simplicity travels to the viewer allowing us to completely immerse ourselves into it as it is so familiar and comfortable. It is when you dive in deep into the image, is when you start understanding the layers and the uncomfortable tensions that the work brings up. I think this is what makes the work so powerful and enjoyable.

Janko’s urban landscape is his own world. We are just allowed to visit it.