Hanno Hardt (1934-2011) was an internationally renowned media theorist, world-renowned communicologist and dedicated photographer. He was born in Germany, but spent most of his life working in the United States, Germany and Slovenia.
A long-time professor of communicology at the University of Io Fanca (USA), he made a significant contribution to the formation of critical approaches in the study of media. After retiring in 2002, he continued his academic career at the Ljubljana Faculty of Social Sciences. He was also extremely fond of photography and left behind the documentary cycles of photographs he produced in the countries where he lived or visited. Photography was understood by Hanna Hardt as a key element of cultural and political life, because, in his opinion, it co-created the visual archive of people and places. He believed that much more than through recorded narratives, history takes shape through images of time. At the forefront of his photographs are always people. He liked to photograph scenes from life in cities, especially the more crowded corners; he played with the inscriptions that people have on their T-shirts, or with graffiti that appear as texts in his photography, as they often lack his photographs. Most of his photographs are scanty with data, only the time dimension is exposed, illustrated by the year of the recording. He was also attracted to large advertising posters, which he understood as the penetration of crude capitalism into profane landscapes, since such advertising still had the effect of being Foreign at that time.
Her husband's precious negatives, stored in 23 folders, the number of which is estimated at 60,000, were presented as a donation to the Museum of contemporary and contemporary history of Slovenia by Dr. Vida Zei in February 2024.
Hanno Hardt was known for his long-term documentary photography projects of everyday life in Ireland, USA, Former East Germany, Croatia, Serbia, Italy and Slovenia. For ten years he photographed the Ljubljana market (from 1984 to 1994), was engaged in documenting the reading process (from 1990 to 2011), and his project Slovenes (from 1991 to 2008), in which he captured two decades of Slovenian transition in images, stood out. It is his latter project that is upgraded in the photo exhibition Hanno Hardt, Slovenians: prints of the past . The exhibition will be set up under the auspices of the Museum of contemporary and contemporary history of Slovenia, prepared by Katarina Jurjavcic, and will be on display in gallery S at the Ljubljana Castle from 12. February 2026 onwards.
Exhibition curator: Katarina Jurjavcic
The exhibition was prepared in cooperation with:
Hanno Hardt (1934–2011) je bil mednarodno priznani teoretik medijev, komunikolog svetovnega slovesa in predan fotograf. Rodil se je v Nemčiji, večino življenja pa je deloval v Združenih državah Amerike, Nemčiji in Sloveniji.
Dolgoletni profesor komunikologije na univerzi v Iowi (ZDA) je pomembno prispeval k oblikovanju kritičnih pristopov pri preučevanju medijev. Po upokojitvi leta 2002 je akademsko kariero nadaljeval na ljubljanski Fakulteti za družbene vede. Izjemno rad je tudi fotografiral in zapustil je dokumentarne cikle fotografij, ki jih je ustvaril v državah, kjer je živel ali jih obiskoval. Fotografijo je Hanno Hardt razumel kot ključni element kulturnega in političnega življenja, saj je po njegovem mnenju soustvarjala vizualni arhiv ljudi in krajev. Verjel je, da se zgodovina veliko bolj kot skozi zapisane pripovedi izoblikuje skozi podobe časa. V ospredju njegovih fotografij so vselej ljudje. Rad je fotografiral prizore iz življenja v mestih, še posebej bolj obljudene kotičke; poigraval se je z napisi, ki jih imajo ljudje na majicah, ali z grafiti, ki v njegovi fotografiji nastopajo kot besedila, saj ta dostikrat umanjkajo njegovim fotografijam. Večina njegovih fotografij je namreč skopa s podatki, izpostavljena je le časovna dimenzija, ponazorjena z letnico nastanka posnetka. Pritegnili so ga tudi veliki reklamni plakati, ki jih je razumel kot prodor surovega kapitalizma v profane krajine, saj je tovrstno oglaševanje tedaj še učinkovalo kot tujek.
Dragocene moževe negative, shranjene v 23 mapah, katerih število je ocenjeno na 60.000, je dr. Vida Zei februarja leta 2024 kot donacijo predala Muzeju novejše in sodobne zgodovine Slovenije.
Hanno Hardt je bil znan po svojih dolgoročnih dokumentarnofotografskih projektih vsakdanjega življenja na Irskem, v ZDA, nekdanji Vzhodni Nemčiji, na Hrvaškem, v Srbiji, Italiji in Sloveniji. Deset let je fotografiral ljubljansko tržnico (od 1984 do 1994), ukvarjal se je z dokumentiranjem bralnega procesa (od 1990 do 2011), izstopajoč je tudi njegov projekt Slovenci (od 1991 do 2008), v okviru katerega je v podobe ujel dve desetletji slovenske tranzicije. Prav njegov slednji projekt je nadgrajen v fotografski razstavi Hanno Hardt, Slovenci: odtisi preteklega . Razstava bo postavljena pod okriljem Muzeja novejše in sodobne zgodovine Slovenije, pripravlja jo Katarina Jurjavčič, na ogled pa bo v Galeriji S na Ljubljanskem gradu od 12. februarja 2026 dalje.
Kustosinja razstave: Katarina Jurjavčič
Razstavo smo pripravili v sodelovanju z:
