Daniel Blaufuks
About
Daniel Blaufuks has worked on the relationship between public and private memory, a constant theme of inquiry in his work as a visual artist, pursued chiefly through photography and video and presented in installations, books and films. In 2007, he published Sob Céus Estranhos (Tinta-da-china) – based on his film Under Strange Skies from 2002 – which earned him the award for best photography book of the year in the international category at PhotoEspaña. He was also awarded a prize in 2007 for his work about a concentration camp in the Czech Republic, additionally presented in the book Terezín (Steidl, 2010) and the film As If (2014). In 2016, he won the AICA/MC/Millennium BCP Visual Arts Award for the exhibitions Attempting Exhaustion and Léxico. More recently, he has published Não Pai (Tinta-da-china, 2019) and Lisboa Clichê (Tinta-da-china, 2021).
He has a PhD from the University of Wales, for which he wrote his thesis on the relationship of photography and cinema to the work of W.G. Sebald and Georges Perec and to the themes of memory and the Holocaust.
His films – “expanded photographs” –have been shown at various film festivals and his latest works examine the resistance to German occupation in Brittany and colonialism in São Tomé and Príncipe, as well as continuing his ongoing non-diary The Days Are Numbered.
Gallery
LACP Interviews Daniel Blaufuks
LACP asks Daniel Blaufuks ten questions about their background, career in and beliefs about photography.
Los Angeles Center of Photography: What kind of photographer are you?
Daniel Blaufuks: Do I really have to define myself? I am a visual artist, that is what I am.
LACP: How long have you been photographing?
DB: Too long to count. I finished my school in 1989.
LACP: Where did you get your training?
DB: I studied at ARCO, Lisbon, trained at several newspapers and magazines, did my PhD at the University of Wales and I am still training every day.
LACP: When did you know you wanted to devote your life to photography?
DB: When I started falling asleep and waking up thinking about photography.
LACP: Did you ever come close to giving up?
DB: Every day.
LACP: Have you sacrificed anything by being a photographer?
DB: You always sacrifice if you want to be an artist. A lot of my possible personal life was taken away by photography, but that was my choice, alas.
LACP: What have you gained by being a photographer?
DB: I have gained the person I am.
LACP: What classes do you teach at LACP?
DB: About the relation between memory and photography (and film).
LACP: What do you love most about teaching?
DB: Being able to find people who are worth teaching to.
LACP: What advice would you give someone who is thinking about making a career in photography?
DB: Don’t do it. But if you do, don’t give up.