Daily Portrait Berlin Dimension: 24 x 30cm. Pages: 440 with high quality print finishing. Published in 2017 by Martin Gabriel Pavel. Book design: Marek Kucera. Paper: LuxoArt Samt 150g. Binding: V8 flexo. Limited edition of 1000 copies. ISBN: 978-80-270-2148-2 Daily Portrait IV Berlin 2015-2017: Daily Portrait Berlin by Martin Gabriel Pavel and Marek Kucera. A big photography book of 381 naked Berliners in their homes. The Art Project. You are at home in your apartment, making tea and suddenly someone rings the doorbell. It's a complete stranger. He/she has a camera and is going to photograph you, naked. You have to get undressed... That's the idea behind Daily Portrait Berlin. During 18 months, a digital camera was travelling around the city of Berlin, passing from hand to hand, linking strangers, and creating a mosaic of stories and portraits of contemporary Berlin, showing society as it is; without prejudice. A work of art does not come into being in order to gain accolades and acknowledgement. A work of art comes into being from internal tension, sometimes even suffering. It comes into being from the feeling of not being comprehended, the feeling of being senseless and ignored; and, at the same time, from a necessity to tell the viewer about something. Artistic creation is a confrontation with oneself. It is a search for a personal theme and a refining of one's form. It is a communication of content in a way that is both universal and unfinished. The Daily Portrait visual project is precisely this kind of communication. It reflects the human being in the mosaic of diverse images in contemporary society. It reflects the human being as he/she is on this day, without the biased selection and criteria of mainstream media- without the preference of race, physical perfection, ideological or sexual orientation. In the initial photographic volume of Daily Portrait, visual artist Martin Gabriel Pavel captured in his Smichov atelier anyone who wanted to participate in the project: young people, old people, the physically attractive and the physically unattractive. People half-naked or in their underwear. People with open minds. Thus, the first mosaic of contemporary humans emerged. In the next year, the project expanded into the streets of Prague. It set out to map the most varied places in their authentic appearance through the lens of a Polaroid instant photography camera. Colour rectangular snapshots were presented in one-man exhibitions, and the second volume was completed with the publication of a rectangular box filled with the collection of images. An obsession with the daily photographing of more and more mosaic pieces resulted in the decision to continue with most recent incarnation of this project, the result of which you are holding in your hands now. This time, Martin's attention was focused on another European city, Berlin...and so Daily Portrait Berlin has emerged. After the second volume of this publication found its way into the hands of Potsdam-based Czech photographer Marek Kucera, he offered Pavel his support for a project in Berlin. Initially, fifteen pictures were taken; yet, influenced by the meeting with Marek Kucera and by his explanation of a never-before-executed project in commercial photography, Pavel decided to rewrite his intent by changing his role from that of photographer to that of coordinator. In this new project, a single camera was passed from hand to hand- from one person willing to take part in the project to another. Each of these human beings opened his/her intimate space and denuded their own body in front of another member in the chain. Complete strangers were willing to open themselves to each other and take pictures of each other. Their life stories were connected by the camera. Pavel himself became a control unit, shackled to the computer and ready to solve remotely, yet in the real-time any problem and obstacle which his wayfaring camera could collide with. He became a hikikomori- an author voluntarily isolated from any worldly happenings with a single goal: to finish this opus successfully. The creative duo cannot be created artificially. The creative duo must meet each other organically. The photographic language of Kucera, who has lived and worked in the German city of Potsdam for many years, is very similar to the photographic language of M. G. Pavel, who hails from the village of Hovorcovice (near Prague). The two artists share a passion for recording reality by the means of a camera lens, yet come from different environments, different cities, with different personal histories, each author in a different life phase. Analogous to the participants of Daily Portrait Berlin, they, too, were connected by the camera. They, too, had not known each other before the project. Three years of mutual dialogues on society, photography, art and life as such resulted not only in collaborative piece of work, but also in a friendship...much like many of the participants. Within 18 months of its creation, the principle of this project has changed the lives of 381 Berliners. This wayfaring camera has interconnected life stories which had before been parallel. New stories have been written. A mosaic of prejudice-free society was created. Every day a new photo was taken. Every day another person bared a part of their private selves to a stranger. Every day another person became the photographer, capturing a part of their neighbour unknown until then. In the book documenting the path of wayfaring camera, you can see all these stories. You can see how they happened. We live in a time dominated by advertising industries and social networks- media which have a different way of influencing our notion of who should we be, how should we live and what should we feel. The ideal of beauty, created by movies and commercials, is reflected in the flood of styled selfies where everyone is trying to look beautiful, to illustrate life in a beautifully furnished flat or at least to create the illusion of this beauty on the internet. Yet not even high numbers of "likes" bring the feeling of true happiness. Contrary to those pictures presented on social networks, the images in the Daily Portrait Berlin don't lie. They are bringing the true image of society from the hands of 381 citizens of Berlin who, even if only for a single day, became both photographers and models. These are images of people who freed themselves, if only for a moment, from their prejudices and fears and denuded themselves in front of a stranger. These are images of people who experienced excitement from this new sensation and became active creators in artistic project. They have created a story about opening their own intimate space not just to another person, but to the entire world. They have shown their own strength. Daily Portrait Berlin is a way of learning about others. It is a probe to explore an authentic image of contemporary human. Anyone who participated in the project took a camera into their hands and used it to throw away their fears. The camera is a tool helping people to return to the reality of human closeness. Daily Portrait Berlin is a principle connecting the people regardless their age, gender, sexual orientation, material wealth, race or national origin. It captures the moments of unexpected meetings. Thus, new roles and new human stories under Pavel's direction are bringing insight as a player in the social game. They show coincidental meetings, moments of surprise and the creative process of two strangers, one of which is completely naked. Daily Portrait Berlin is not an encyclopaedia of subcultures. Daily Portrait Berlin shows the varied image of today's people, connected by a common attitude towards communication with the world. This attitude toward the world and the way of cognitively grasping it is changing society. It helps society to grow. It helps its people to live together to respect and to complement each other- to create a community and share a sense of belonging. Daily Portrait Berlin is not assessing or judging. It lends space to the real human being. It shows the uncensored truth; an authentic world instead of a fictional one. In its 437 pages, this book brings insight into the identity of contemporary humans. It shows interiors which reflect the personalities of their tenants. It shows how the people live, how they feel. It shows both nudity and timidity...and it shows joy. It destroys barriers. It is becoming a tool of social interaction. The piece of art presented here has emerged from play, from curiosity, from a thirst for learning and from many unintentional, unforeseeable situations and impulses. The graphic design of this publication is the work of Marek Kucera. His chronologically organized conception allows individual photographs to stand out and gives each one of them enough space to narrate the entire story. The book also includes records of authentic conversations and impressions of its individual protagonists. It is a complete visual narrative which confirms the universality of photography as a medium for anyone, regardless their talents or artistic skills, without the requirement for perfection. This project extends beyond the border dividing the world of academic art and the world of ordinary people. It brings an inspirational, yet functional model of interpersonal interaction which you can be a part of in your own city. Text: Bara Alex Kasparova copyright · Martin Gabriel Pavel · 2019 · all rights reserved