Photograms (Serbian: Fotogrami) by Vane Bor was made principally in Vrnjačka Banja, Serbia, in 1928, using glass, string, paper, and other objects to create camera-less images. The series consists of ten numbered works, Fotogram (1) through Fotogram (10), most measuring about 18 by 24 centimeters.
For Bor, the photogram offered a way to keep objects perceptible while deforming their familiar appearance. He described seeking a "nocturnal or cosmic effect" through shadows, translucent materials, and a balance of deliberate handling and accident. Although automatism was central to Surrealism, he considered the medium capable only of "quasi-automatic" action under limited mental control. This tension joined domestic experimentation to the Belgrade group's broader use of photography as an operative Surrealist medium rather than straightforward documentation.
The images show objects, but often leave them unrecognizable. Strong exposure suppresses three-dimensional volume, reducing recognizable or ambiguous materials to flattened silhouettes, enlarged details, and translucent tonal fields. Broken glass produces branching, shard-like forms, while knotted string and crumpled paper register as linear or textured traces. Across three related glass images, repeated forms and subtle variations suggest movement from one sheet to the next, giving the still photographs a film-like progression.
Bor learned the photogram process in Paris through contact with French Surrealists, but many works were produced under domestic conditions in his family house in Vrnjačka Banja. Objects were placed directly on photographic paper and exposed to light without a camera. He knotted string and crumpled paper before exposure, and for the broken-glass images smashed a small bottle with a hammer directly on the paper, exposing the fragments without rearranging them.
Some photograms entered public circulation in the 1930 Belgrade almanac Nemoguće, the first collective publication and manifesto of the Belgrade Surrealists. The Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade presented Bor's first retrospective in 1990 and later received works from him, while the ten numbered photograms are held in its Marko Ristić Legacy. Subsequent exhibitions included One Minute Before Murder in Belgrade in 2002, La Subversion des images at the Centre Pompidou in 2009, and Drawing Surrealism at LACMA and the Morgan Library & Museum in 2012–2013.
