Ljubljana
Paul Ickovic / In search of the perfect photo
Why did the New York photographer, whose works adorn the walls of many important world galleries and the homes of Hollywood stars, find a new home in Ljubljana?
Paul Ickovic in his not-yet-renovated apartment on Križevniška Street in Ljubljana
Even if I wanted to, I couldn't have started writing this article at the beginning, because I didn't enter the story unexpectedly until somewhere near the end. Or, if you like, at the beginning of a new chapter. The American photographer Paul Ickovic became my neighbor in the middle of last year, in the autumn of his life (he was born on March 16, 1944, which means that on the day this issue of Mladina is published, he celebrates his 74th birthday!). Even the closest one, that is, I see his front door as soon as I open mine. And it was because of the door that we met. One day I heard a shout from the hallway: "Help!" Someone was calling for help in English and knocking on the door.
I ran into the corridor and saw a woman in front of the door of the apartment next door, which had been empty for at least 15 years, but had acquired a new owner shortly before this event. She hastily explained to me that someone had locked themselves and couldn't get out because there was no handle on the door. Disgusting, I thought, but it was such a quiet floor. Besides, it was Monday morning and I was running late for work, but I still figured I could solve the conundrum relatively quickly. I rushed into the apartment and took a larger screwdriver from the drawer, and then told the unknown gentleman on the other side of the door in English to back off a little and stop pressing and pounding on the door. "It's only my first day here and I'm already trapped in the apartment," he muttered. It seemed to me that he still takes the plot with a hint of irony, that he finds the unpleasant situation he finds himself in a little funny. I pushed the screwdriver into the hole,
"I have a beautiful neighbor!" I heard from behind them and soon after I saw a smiling man. We held hands. "I'm Paul and this is my girlfriend Natalija, come see the apartment, for now it's still scattered and in a very bad condition, but we'll rearrange it all," he hurried to tell, full of life and enthusiasm, he immediately explained to me in detail how you he envisioned the entire space, which came to life in front of us, although we were actually looking at piles of dust, cracked radiators and cracked walls.
A visual, I thought. I was right. “I'm a photographer, I came from New York, because of a woman, of course, love is the only thing that can move you out of comfort. I'm 73 years old and still searching for that perfect photo. I haven't recorded it yet. I've shot some good ones that I'm happy with, some really good ones too. But I don't have the great one yet. What about you? What are you doing? You'll have to tell me everything about yourself,” he added, asking curiously, as if he were a retired version of the Little Prince from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's famous book. There's something Peterpan about him, I thought. Little did I realize that I had just opened the door to someone with such an enviable career.
According to Ickovic, his best photograph is Phantom of the Odeon, Paris, which he created in 1964 from a departing train. In June of this year, visitors to the important art fair Art Basel in Switzerland will also be able to see it in a package of his works.
© Paul Ickovic
Paul Ickovic is not "just" a photographer, he is a photographer whose works hang in prominent galleries and museums, including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Many celebrities have them in their private collections, including film director Martin Scorsese and actors Joe Pesci and Richard Gere. It is also appreciated by the biggest names in photography. With all this, it is not surprising that the prices of his photos are high, around ten thousand euros. He even sold the most expensive Rabbit And Cat Having A Tea Party from 1979 for more than 20 thousand euros.
So Paul is a renowned photographer. After less than a year of knowing him, I can confirm that he is also a photographer who breaks stereotypes about photographers. I have never once seen him with a camera in his hand. Venomer searches for stories, but only pulls the trigger when he sees pictures in them. But that can take time. He is inspired by Federico Fellini, the famous Italian director who redefined film aesthetics and modern visual narrative. He taught Ickovic to feel, and the great photographer Cartier-Bresson taught him to look. "I don't like photographers and I generally don't socialize with them either. The only photographers who are geniuses for me and I am humbled by them are Josef Koudelka and Henri-Cartier Bresson. I had the honor of meeting both of them, becoming friends with them, as well as collaborating and creating," says Ickovic.
Film director Martin Scorsese and actors Joe Pesci and Richard Gere have his works in their private collections. He sold the most expensive photo for more than 20 thousand euros.
Ljubljana is still getting used to this moment, as well as its inhabitants. But Slavism, as you probably already guessed from his last name, is in his blood, because even though he lived in New York for more than 40 years and is an American citizen, he is of Czech origin. His first home remains Prague, and his story is very international, as he has as many as three passports - Czech, American and British.
Fatal Cairo
“Are you really going to write an article about me?” he asked me one day. "If you're going to do it, don't write about what kind of camera I use and photography techniques. It's boring, nobody cares about it, least of all me. I use the camera only as a means to press the shutter button at the right moment and capture what I hope will be a great photograph." I didn't even intend to write about photographic technique, I told him, I wanted to portray a person, an artist and a special person, that's what I interested. “But be honest and realistic. Please don't write me eulogies, I've read so much idealized crap about myself in articles. I already know, call Natalija, she will also tell you bad things about me, and just write about how I can be tight. Don't hold back, write the truth, because I will pass it on," he convinced me.
And when I finally write about him, I have an open window through which come the sounds of old American jazz, echoing from his apartment. Jazz was his first love.
“How many guitars do you have! Can I try one?” he asked me the first time he visited me. I thought he was going to strum a bit, show that he too can play a chord, and then put the guitar down again. Well, I honestly counted myself. He sat down on the couch and started playing something reminiscent of Django Reindthart, a French jazz guitarist with Roma roots. It was he who was Ickovic's role model in the 1960s, when - you won't believe it - he was still playing jazz guitar in New York clubs. Not just like that, but professionally, he also played with recognized names from the scene at the time. “I wanted to be Django Reindthart. When I realized I was just never going to be that good, I gave up and put the guitar down. But I still carry music with me every day. I can hear it in the photos too.” I immediately had to lend him one of the guitars;
His love story with Slovenia began 30 years ago and is also connected to why he moved here last year. Natalija Polenec, today the director of the Technical Museum, visited Egypt in May 1987, when she was a 21-year-old student in her third year at the Faculty of Architecture. She traveled alone. On the first day, she ran into photographer Paul Ickovic, two decades her senior. Today, she does not remember how they started the conversation, but given his character, she assumes that he spoke to her, and she responded. “I found him interesting and we spent the next day together. He showed me the poor parts of Cairo. I remember curly hair, a lively look, a raspy voice, he was dressed in a shirt and a safari vest with many pockets, and he had a Leica camera slung over his shoulders," says Natalija.
His love story with Slovenia began 30 years ago. Natalija Polenec visited Egypt in May 1987, then a 21-year-old student. She ran into a photographer two decades older on the first day.
After returning home, she received two letters from him. "I forgot the letter. What should she do in that situation? I wanted to finish my studies, the thought of a relationship with an older American scared me. I couldn't imagine a serious relationship. Despite his kindness, I did not dare to send him the letters I had already written. Then the story slowly faded away. I haven't forgotten him, but life goes on," says Natalija Polenec, who ten years ago got the better of her curiosity, looked up his website and found out that he remains loyal to photography. In December 2016, after breaking up with her partner, she took her daughter to Vienna, where they visited Hundertwasser's house, which had an exhibition of the famous Austrian photographer. The photos reminded her of Paul and she looked up his website again and sent him a short message just before the New Year, thinking, that an assistant will probably read it and throw it away. But Paul read the message and replied to her the same day. The communication became more and more intense and last January they heard each other for the first time after three decades, and last March they also met in Paris. The flame was obviously still burning, because Ickovic already came to visit in May, and in July he also moved to Ljubljana.
The photo he sold the most times and also for the highest amount: Rabbit And Cat Having A Tea Party. Under the mask of a rabbit is the French publisher and producer Robert Delpire, and the photo was taken in his Paris house in 1979.
© Paul Ickovic
"Why him? Because he is one of the most romantic men. Because for him, aesthetics is something final and absolute, because he is selfless, because he is always attentive, because he knows how to observe nuances and overlooks them, he reads them without words. Because he knew how to find a child in me and joys, hobbies that I had already forgotten, buried. Because he is knowledgeable, because he is not only a photographer, but also has other talents, he is a musician, a painter. And because a day with him is never boring," says Natalija, who readily admits that she is far from perfect. He is irritable, constantly seeking attention, stubborn, sleeps only a few hours a day and then wants to talk in the middle of the night while she sleeps. And that eternal artistic flaw, that he doesn't know how to handle money. Although his photos sell for high prices, he is perpetually penniless. I remember, how he once turned into an antique store and left with a sinfully expensive table that he didn't even need, but liked. The next day he asked me for a cigarette or two.
A storyteller with stellar charisma
Ickovic says that the best photo he has taken so far is his first. He saw in front of him the person he wanted to capture in a timeless moment, and he pressed the trigger without hesitation. Timing is everything, he claims. It's about seconds, hundredths. Post-production is of secondary importance to him, although it is also an important piece of the puzzle that leads to the perfect photograph. You can see his first photo in all its grandeur (literally, as it measures about two meters in length, and the price is appropriate for that) in the Ljubljana Photo Gallery (he is represented on the Slovenian market by Barbara Čeferin). When our photographer Uroš Abram saw her, he told me that she was "really good". In fact, it is already on the border of poetic, because it works more like the work of a painter than the work of a photographer.
"There are days when I doubt my talent - when I feel like I'm mediocre, it frustrates me a lot. I hope that I still have that one photo in me that I will take and that I can call my life's work. One that will overshadow my entire oeuvre," Ickovic sometimes complains. Doubt and creative crisis are part of the artistic vocation. But my neighbor is not only a thinking bohemian, but also has a wild, fun, even mischievous side. Streets and bars are his world, which, despite the years, he naively explores, not because of concrete buildings or granite blocks, but because of people, who still inspire him. He looks for stories, he plays a psychologist, but above all he is in love with women, with their images, with their eyes, with their enthusiasm, with flirting with them, even though it is completely innocent.
I hope that I still have that one photo in me that I will take and that I can call my life's work. One that will overshadow my entire oeuvre.
"This will be my last wedding," he told me a few weeks ago, as he plans to marry for the fourth time soon. “I've missed many opportunities in my life because they were related to women I loved or they loved me. From a professorship at Harvard to several tens of millions. But I don't regret anything," he is determined, but at the same time he admits that he was never a good father, that he is not very good at parenting. His youngest son is not yet ten years old, but his oldest already has a family, is a successful lawyer and lives in the Hamptons, just a stone's throw from New York.
Paul Ickovic has been told several times that he looks like Keith Richards, the graying and wizened guitarist of the Rolling Stones. Once he even got the best table in an expensive New York restaurant on this account. I also witnessed an event in a Ljubljana restaurant, when two German tourists quite seriously wondered if Ickovic might be the Polish director Roman Polanski. In fact, he is a mixture of several famous people - because he has such star charisma, you get the feeling that you have known him from before, even if it is from a poster, a big screen, a small screen, a concert stage. In fact, he is a storyteller, and wherever he appears, he tells stories and creates an atmosphere.
The photo Laska (Love) is autobiographical, also because the author's shadow appears on it. It was created in 1980 during a night walk in Prague
© Paul Ickovic
He will only tell you that he is friends with celebrities if you are really interested or if he knows that it will make an impression on you. His good friend is, for example, the Hollywood director Miloš Forman, also a Czech by birth, his classmate at Queens College was the playwright and writer David Mamet, with whom he also worked on some joint projects. More impressive for the profession is the list of exhibitions - this extends from a joint exhibition with photography giants Robert Cappa and Henri Cartier-Bresson in 1985 in Manhattan (at the International Center of Photography), where he returned six years later with a solo exhibition, to an exhibition at Harvard University. Collections of his works can be found not only in MoMI and the Metropolitan Museum, but also in, for example, the New York Library, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston,
Sometimes signed Pablo - after the painter Pablo Picasso. But he was also called that after his family left Europe after World War II and moved to Argentina. Only later did she settle in the USA
Paul Ickovic sometimes signs himself as Pablo, which is a kind of homage to another great artist he adores - the painter Pablo Picasso. He also paints on the walls of his apartment. As he says, he borrowed the technique from Picasso, and the subject is always a woman. His paintings are surprisingly minimalist and he usually only uses two or three colors. But that's not all Pablo does. He was called that after his family, who left Prague and then Europe after World War II, moved to Argentina. Only later did she settle in the USA. But Ickovic doesn't talk much about his upbringing and childhood, although he is proud of his parents - his mother was from a more influential family, and his father was a so-called "self-made man", a man who started from scratch and succeeded. He likes to return to his native Prague, but he says he will not miss America: "These are different times, this is the era of Donald Trump, who thinks everyone wants to migrate to the US. Well, I'm telling him that I'm happy to leave them."
Finally, we have to return to photography. Ickovic's key advice is: "Don't think and press the trigger as soon as you think you've witnessed the moment you want to capture. The second photo is already a desperate attempt to fix the first, but it's never better than the first.” Sam still swears by black and white photography and is still a stickler for analog photography, even though many urge him to at least give digital a chance. So he photographs on film, and until he develops it in the darkroom, he never knows whether he has managed to capture the story or not. "Maybe the next one will be monumental," he thinks, still waiting for a photo that he will admire. Until then, we will admire the rest.
Paul in his apartment in Ljubljana. Photo by Luna Bisaki