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Ziga Koritnik

Ziga Koritnik is multi-practical photographer, following and photographing musicians for more than 35 years.

About Me

by Mats Gustafsson, April 2017, Nickelsdorf (text for book Cloud Arrangers)

Žiga NOW!

The instant now. The moment. We are all seeking it. Looking for it. Longing for it. Doing all kinds of research to get it. To capture it. To “get it”. Research and re-search. Whether it is about sounds, texts, theatre, dance or images -moving ones or stills - when we find it, we know it! We realize it only the millimoment after it has happened. We can never foresee it. We cannot plan for it to happen. But when we find it… we know that what we are doing is working. That it all makes sense. That goes without saying. With Improvised Music you try to empty yourself, try to disconnect your intellect -if you have any that is- and just go with the flow… play – interact – listen … And BAM! There it is! It all connects! The moment is the hub. Everything comes together: dynamics, structure, density, phrasing, colors and detail. It is a beautiful moment. For all creative artists it is maybe about the same thing? The way I see it, it is. The best writers can do that. They can make you just go with the flow without thinking. You are nailed to the moment. It is a state of mind more than anything else. Paul Auster, Gunnar Ekelöf and Robert Creeley being three of my all-time favorite capturers of the moment. Dance is another art form where the moment has to be there in order to make you attentive and aware. During some of the most amazing moments of watching dance I stopped breathing. I literally really had to fight to get oxygen into my lungs, remembering how to breathe. Watching Pina Bausch´s choreography of Igor Stravinsky’s “Rite of the Spring” was like that. I watched it three times in a week. And every time it almost killed me! My first meeting with Butoh maestro Kazuo Ohno was another one of those truly life changing moments. We met on- stage during a free improvisation that involved Peter Kowald, Ohno and myself in Wuppertal during the Pina Bausch festival. An extremely interactive and attentive sharing of the moment. Time just stopped; the moment stayed with us for a long time. That is how I felt it. The moment just stayed there in the room with us and with the people watching and hearing it. You could touch it. It is all about the moment. It has to be. So, bear with me. I want to take the chance to shine a spotlight at the moment. The moment as a catalyst for artistic creativity. Of course, we know what a beautiful and creative capturer of moments the subject of this essay is, so we can come back to that a bit later. The instant now. The moment. How I love it. How I adore it. But you have to fight for it. It doesn’t appear without effort. If you are not aware… it passes by and it is gone. It can never be caught again, that particular moment. We have to take care of them, the moments. As an improvising musician, you capture it sometimes on stage. And a certain kind of magic is exposed and revealed. Especially within the so-called free improvised music. When nothing is decided beforehand, and everything can happen. Sometimes nothing happens. No matter how hard you look and try for that moment. The harder you look, the harder it gets. You need to just BE there. And trust it to appear. Meaning trusting the people you interact with. And it will appear, the moment. BANG! Some of the best improvisers have that special gift, just like Žiga Koritnik, to be able to capture the moment and make something more out of it. Derek Bailey, Ken Vandermark, Barry Guy, Paul Lovens, Jim O´ Rourke, Günter Christmann, Raymond Strid and a few others…

Another kind of magic can appear when you play for a very small audience. Like the marathon sessions of hardcore free jazz blowouts I did early on with my comrade Kjell Nordeson – in our teens - in our hometown Umeå, on the southern border to Sapmi, Lapland, in northern Sweden. We only had our great friend, Edward Jarvis, the painter, listening to our high-energy outbursts. Hour long flows of energy and extreme density. How important those sessions were! And how much in-the-moment we were when we did the research. When we were really exploring the shit. And the magic that appears when you play with someone even without an audience, when something just happens without warning. Such as that time when I was warming up backstage at the club Paradiso in Amsterdam before a concert with the kickassfreepunkunit The EX. Closing my eyes and concentrating on controlling some percussive sax techniques. In walks the Ethiopian legend Getatchew Mekurya with his tenor sax. He closes the door behind him, sits down opposite me, looks into my eyes and just starts playing. Me making an intense flow of percussive sounds, Getatchew playing some of his ancient beautiful melodies. No other people listening, time disappearing- the moment. All there. I have no idea how long we played. Suddenly, it was over. We smiled, stood up, bowed to each other and Getatchew left the room. I sat down, feeling the moment still present in the room, enjoying it tremendously. Breathing and trying to understand what actually just has happened.

And yes… it HAS to take time. The artistic research is a lifelong process. You will never be done with it. You NEED to continue with it. You NEED to be willing to continuously take new risks and to learn to love the mistakes you make, then deal with them. It’s the only way. It is. And you need to find the people to interact with. People that are willing to do the same research you do, the similar mistakes. Sometimes it just works, sometimes you have to really fight for it. Both alternatives are good. And yes, this is how it works. With some people, it just clicks. Right away. What a privilege! What a gift!

The first meeting with Žiga Koritnik was like that. Big time! The person Žiga. The artist Žiga. It clicked. And he clicked. From the first photo shoot in the end of last century with AALY Trio and Ken Vandermark in Ljubljana via, I guess, hundreds of concerts all around Europe, to photo shoots for various groups I have been active in and also photo sessions for articles and special projects. We joined forces right away, understanding what it was all about. The moment, the search, the sharing. When I married the love of my life, Bärbel, in Austria in 2010, Žiga was documenting the wedding and the insane party the days after in Nickelsdorf [(check the photo of Barry Guy – on page 116 - trying the best grappa ever produced: Marolo – Grappa Dedicata al Padre from the Distillery of Santa Teresia in Alba)- OUT lp, Vid] like he always does. Invisible, but always there. Capturing every moment. With beauty. Žiga, the artist. Žiga, the person. He means a hell of a lot to me. I can use many superlatives about him and his photography. But it’s best to always leave that out and let the photos speak for themselves. I think that is pretty obvious. When you actually share those moments. You know it, you can feel it. Thanks to artists like Žiga we have a chance to remember those crucial moments that are valid to us- in our music, in our art, in our life. Because he captured them. He was there. And his sense of timing is so unbelievably musical. Pure music, that I can say. Music in black and white. Black and white music. I love the details, the compositions, the form, the density, the flow. the energy. It is all there. Inside the images. And yes, I can also put it very simply: Žiga is definitely the most amazing, sensitive and creative photographer alive when it comes to capturing the moment of MUSIC. In MUSIC- when it is done. Live. Alive. When it is being created. When the instant NOW appears. BANG! Wam bam BANG – CLICK! CLICK!

Mats Gustafsson, April 2017, Nickelsdorf ( text for the book Cloud Arrangers)