This book is the reproduction of Željko Jerman’s (1949 – 2006) work
My Year 1977 with an introduction/statement by artist himself and
afterword by Darko Šimičić, artist’s friend and expert on his work.
In this work, Jerman was photographing himself daily throughout
the whole year 1977. He glued each photo to an A4 paper an wrote
notes to accompany them. The notes are translated in the book at
the bottom of each page.
Jerman creates intimate testimony of social and individual views
about life and art through the diary project and “documenting
himself” in the miraculous overlapping of photography and personal
notes.

The book was published as part of a series of publications devoted
to authors from the Group of Six Artists, whose retrospective
exhibition the Institute for Contemporary Art has realized in Zagreb
in 1998, and later in other Croatian and cities abroad.
In 1997, when the book was published, Jerman was preparing a new
edition of the project, My year 1997.
After his passing away in 2006, his wife, artist herself, Bojana
Švertasek made a final edition, dedicated to Jerman, titled My year
2007.

Željko Jerman was primarily working with photography. He owned
a photo studio but soon realised that the photography is much more
than taking photos. After closing down the shop, he started working
on deconstructing photography, applying methods of solarisation,
working with chemicals directly on photo paper, using text and
ceases to use photo camera.
With Vlado Martek and Boris Demur, he starts working in urban
public spaces since mid 70ies. The three were later joined by
Mladen and Sven Stilinović and Fedor Vučemilović, which are now
known as the Group of Six Artists.
Jerman was also writing and publishing texts on art and theory, as
he was using texts in his work.