Emil Grebenar was born on November 29, 1956 in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, to a Bosnian mother and a Hungarian father. He was involved in photography since elementary school. His parents enrolled him in Sarajevo’s First Gymnasium and he went to classes regularly until he heard that there was a photography course at the Branko Lazić high school. Without prior consultation with his mother, he took his documents and transferred there, so that he could learn what he loves most, photography. He worked for about ten years in the photo shop ‘Foto-Express’, and acquired the professional title of master of photography in 1975. He was professionally engaged in photography since 1977, and newspaper photography was his commitment since 1985, when he started working in Sarajevo for the daily ‘Večernje Novine’, which at that time was the fourth newspaper in Yugoslavia.
He had ten years of professional wrestling behind him. He was successful and had a sports career in front of him, but he devoted himself entirely to photography. He was happy because he belonged to that famous generation that grew up with the legendary Beatles. “Despite my hearing problems, which I developed by diving and jumping from a house on Bentbaša, in order to be hip, I learned to play the guitar very quickly. Today I have two of them and I often relax like that,” said the musical photojournalist. He was also good at painting. He left behind a lot of oil on canvas paintings that adorn the walls of his dear friends. “I like to paint. The motives are different, depending on the mood. I give my work to dear people. I’m also a good cook, and I helped my mother out as a boy. Then I cooked top Bosnian specialties for my company, followed by a comment from my friend Mira Poljo, “Emil, leave photography and start cooking and playing the guitar, because you do it best.”
He spent the entire war and siege of the city in Sarajevo, during which he shot close to 12,000 photographs. During the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Emil walked the 57-kilometer-long ring of besieged Sarajevo three times, and on countless occasions he found himself in the midst of fighting. With his camera, he recorded the pain and suffering of his fellow citizens day after day. He spent one night in the Ilidža prison when he was arrested by Serb forces while photographing Lord Carrington’s arrival in Sarajevo. He spent countless days photographing the front lines of the city’s defenses together with his colleague from ‘Večernje Novine’ Vildana Selimbegović. “At the time, I worked for Sarajevo’s Večernje Novine and my photojournalist coworker Emil Grebenar and I toured the outskirts of Sarajevo on a daily basis, reporting on the emergence of lines of defense, residents who organized, and ultimatums that arrived.” Vildana Selimbegović
“Mid-May 1992: there was still food in Sarajevo, but also a firm belief that the world would end the agony of the besieged city. The local Territorial Defense commander took us on a tour. They were just taking away the last dead bodies in Gornji Pofalići. Emil took photos of real bunkers. In one of them, most likely blown up by an RPG, we found a scene from old war films: two dead Chetniks, in black uniforms, with long beards and cockades. The house next to the bunker, the fighter explained, belonged to Ratko Mladic’s brother. They found a cache of weapons, food and ammunition in it. The owner, of course, had escaped on time. We climb onto the porch, Emil is still taking photos, and the fighter explains that there are more dead Chetniks nearby and at one point, probably reacting to my paleness, he says: Sorry, ma’am, but we left these for the journalists to see. Let the world know who’s attacking us. On the same day, in the evening news of the Pale television, Ratko Mladić appeared over Sarajevo, most likely at Vraca. He explained the ‘mujahedin’ offensive on Pofalici. The camera shows me, Emil and the commander on the porch of the house, and Mladic says: “You see, the mujahideen also entered my brother’s house.” There was a volley of threats, swearing, promises of destruction.” Vildana Selimbegović
“From those 1,425 too long days I carry at least three times as many memories. Some make me feel thousands of kilometers away from Sarajevo. Some, like the death of my husband, live with me and I know that it is the same with everyone. Just as I know that I was infinitely proud of all our small and big successes, from newspapers that managed to find their way to readers in such conditions, to theater plays and book promotions that were sometimes organized by candlelight. Death was ubiquitous, at one time I was afraid to mention people who we met on the lines of defense because it seemed to me that someone would come tomorrow to bring an obituary with their names. But we mourned and rejoiced together.”
“In May 1992, Sarajevo was disappearing in the smoke of explosions, in the echo of artillery shells, under a rain of bullets. At Vasin Han, a nine-year-old girl was picking flowers. That moment of escape from the reality of war, that childish smile for which the intoxicating scent of field lilies is sufficient. ” Vildana Selimbegović
In 1994, during the siege of Sarajevo, Emil Grebenar organized his first solo war exhibition at the Mak Gallery. Some of the exhibited photos had already been seen in Ankara, Istanbul, Skopje. The exhibition was called ‘Scream of Conscience’. By the way, by 1994, Emil Grebenar had already photographed 8,500 negatives and stored them in his archive. The then Assistant Minister of Culture Mustafa Demir, opening the exhibition, said that one could not help but feel the pleasure of attending this testimony of our Golgotha. In a special, professional way, Emil recorded what we experienced then. That exhibition was another testimony to what our people survived. Nermina Kapić, who was the president of the Board of Directors of ‘Večernje Novine’ at the time, also spoke about Emil Grebenar and his work, saying that his photographs required not only an artistic eye but also a brave heart, because it was necessary to reach the front lines of the defense of the city, that is where everything was photographed and where everything happened.
His longtime colleague from ‘Večernje Novine’, Saša Rukavina, remembers. “We had been working together at Večernje Novine for a long time. And no matter how I bring back the memories, there are few where Emil is whining about something, where something is hard for him, where we argue.” While preparing his solo exhibition, he asked Saša for help. “He greeted me at one of my war arrivals to Sarajevo, it must have been in 1993, maybe 1994, all radiant:” You didn’t look at my photos every day, so you will help me choose more objectively about thirty of them for the exhibition. “Yes, he had to make an exhibition. The Association of Journalists of BiH chose him as the war photojournalist of the year. I remember that well: 7,000, yes, he put seven thousand negatives in front of me. We reviewed them in one night. He pulled off that exhibition, I don’t even know how – there was not even water in Sarajevo, let alone photo paper, developers, fixing agents.” Saša Rukavina
Emil left the country for the Italian city of Prato, where he planned to stay only a few days or months, and stayed for a whole decade. Since 1995, he lived and worked in a small Italian town as a lecturer and photographer. His photos have traveled the world, and numerous awards and professional recognitions have been the crown of his many years of work. He received many awards, of which we single out the award for Bosnia’s best photojournalist of in 1993. Emil Grebenar was especially attached to his city and to the suffering of his people. With his work, which took place in very difficult conditions and with a lack of tools of the trade, he managed to attract and draw the attention of the European public to the tragedy that befell Bosnia, to the brutality of the war that did not spare even civilians. Emil Grebenar’s photos lead us to a whole series of reflections on what was happening so close to us and to the need to awaken human consciousness that is anchored in the values of peace and coexistence among nations. His photos were exhibited in the cities of Ankara, Istanbul, Ohrid, Ljubljana, Maribor, Turin, Prato, Viareggio, Lucca, Collegno, Milan and Florence.
Some of his photographs have traveled the world and the most popular among them are: ‘Landslide on Vasin Han’, ‘Flood on Bistrik’ and ‘Fire in the Chamber Theater 55’. He received prestigious awards for many of them. He said he was lucky to find himself in some places at the right time, especially during the events in Romania, Kosovo, Slovenia, the wars in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. He also talked about new technologies in photography that brought speed, especially in newspaper photography, but took away individuality and originality, because it is difficult to recognize which photo was taken by which photojournalist. “We are no longer waiting for films to be developed. Now we see photos much earlier, but today almost anyone with a good camera can be a good photographer,” Grebenar explained. Grebenar resented the modern technologies, emphasizing that without the knowledge of analog photography, there is no real photojournalist.
Grebenar’s newspaper photographs are characterized by both high documentary content and an exceptional sense of time and place. “The greatest opportunity is photography and the pleasure of doing the job I love. For the last ten years I have worked and lived in the beautiful Italian town of Prato, where I met many dear people, made great friends, of whom I single out my photography students Agostino Gestri and Claudio Muzzetto, whose photographs were exhibited at this first exhibition of mine after a long period of time.” Emil had sixty solo exhibitions throughout Italy, and his photos have toured Europe and other continents. “All these years I have kept in touch with my hometown, but recently I saw a report from Sarajevo in a magazine which made it feel much better, more beautiful and more glamorous than it really is. This prompted me to come again and take a new series of photos with my students, and the result is my exhibition ‘Scream of Conscience II’, where photos of Sarajevo then and now are exhibited.” he adds.
“I am immensely proud and happy to have had Emil as my professor of photography. I learned from him everything I need to know in this business. Emil is a photography wizard and a professional who has an incredibly big heart. He is able to do anything for someone he loves. Because of his huge love he turned down fantastic business offers in New York, Paris, Sydney… He knows how to love and deserves to be loved”, says photography student Agostino Gestri, who replaced architecture with photography and considers it his profession, about his professor Emil.
With the photo exhibition ‘Scream of Conscience II’ at the Collegium Artisticum in 2005, the renowned BiH photojournalist Emil Grebenar announced his return to his hometown. After 10 years in Italy, Emil returned to Sarajevo. His famous war photo will follow him for full 14 years; the girl from Vasin Han has meanwhile become a mother, but her photo has helped the artist to come full circle. The exhibition that opened at the Collegium Artisticum was not only a story in photos, it was at the same time a testimony to a time of immense suffering, but also of life in spite of everything.
It is interesting for this master that his photos are always in black and white, which is an attractive combination for fans of good photography in Western Europe. “In particular, Scream of Conscience II would have been spoiled by colors. Given the wartime Sarajevo theme, the nuances would probably have diminished the drama. Although we have been overwhelmed by digital cameras and color photographs, I remain consistent with the standard cameras and colorless photos that are increasingly in demand in the West. In Italy, even when it comes to weddings, newlyweds demand a black-and-white film,” says Emil, trying to explain that, despite his master’s degree in photography and education, he is not a photographer but a photojournalist.” The difference is drastic, because a photographer, when he wants to take a good photo, he tries to achieve only good sharpness and contrast, while a photojournalist has to tell the whole story in one photo and answer those basic five journalistic questions: who, what, where, when and why.”
“Photography was his life, at all times, even when it turned out that in the city whose siege he had so carefully documented by witnessing it first hand, there was no longer even any social security for him. But even that did not stop him from generously sharing his love for the most important document of his life with those who wanted to learn from him. Sometimes, when we met, he used to ask why we never got together, why we did nothing to at least collect our own memories: he has photos, they will all testify about the life we shared. If we didn’t want that either, he said, let us hang out. The war in all its misery made us friends, we shared every last bite. He had it was his way again: we gathered to send him off, and who knows, maybe the day will come when we will realize that this seven-crust bread of ours — whether we call ourselves journalists, photojournalists, or cameramen — is less bitter when we are together, no matter the medium, nation and (or) entity. It would also be an opportunity to return this trade to the place that belongs to it. And that we don’t talk about Emil Grebenar and other masters of our craft only when they die.” Vildana Selimbegović
EMIL GREBENAR was born on November 29, 1956 in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
He died on October 18, 2017 in Sarajevo.
Special thanks to InfoBiro & Knjiga Vremena
Thanks to Vildana Selimbegović, Saša Rukavina and Oslobođenje.
Music used: ‘Fabio Biondi & Europa Galante:
Vivaldi Violin Concerto In F, Op. 8 no.3, RV 293, ‘The Four Seasons (Autumn)’ – 2. Adagio Molto’
The song is permitted for non-commercial use under license:
Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
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