Horvatland 12+

Frank Horvat: 73 years of photography and a trip through a mind.

In 1946, from his schooldesk, Frank Horvat surreptitiously photographed his philosophy teacher. By the 50ies, he was a globe-trotting photojournalist. In the 60ies, he became a world renowned fashion photographer, for his innovatory way of shooting fashion in real life. In the 70ies, with Portraits of Trees , he switched to landscape and colour. In the 80ies, he produced photo essays on literature (Goethe in Sicily), sculpture (Degas' sculpture, Romanesque Figures), painting (Very Similar) and a written essay on photography itself (Entre-Vues). In the 90ies, he was the first among the acknowledged masters to adopt digital techniques. In 1999, a published a Photo Diary about the last year of the millennium. At the beginning of 2010, he read about the iPad, and immediately saw it as a vehicle to what he calls "a trip through his mind."

In this application, Horvat presents about 2000 images that he likes to think of as his work, but also about 60.000 words of autobiographical text and 10 hours of spoken comments. All these elements are linked, allowing the user to wander through the application, as he would through a labyrinth. For instance by following Horvat's keywords that are not so much factual - such as "Men", "Women", "Children" - as conceptual: like "Time flows", "Twilight", "Walls speak", "Once upon a time", "One".

Another network you can enter is that of guided tours. These are recorded conversations between Horvat and different people interested in photography, about themes such as: "Directive and non directive photography", "Dirty subjects", "Not what it is but what it makes you think of", "About portraits", "A good photo cannot be taken again".

About his "labyrinth", that has taken him 18 months to complete, Frank says: "Possibly I built it not only - or not so much - to allow others to get lost in it, as to help myself to find an exit."