Andrzej Różycki, Glacial Erratics, 1968-69
TITLE_NAME :
Andrzej Różycki - Letʼs praise the negative! / Locus suspectus
22/09/2017 - 20/10/2017
ASYMETRIA
Only positively about the negative. Oh holy, underappreciated negative! Photography ends where the negative fades away. The eternal luminosity of photography. Towards light. Light-substantiality irretrievably lost. What is life without love etc. And in conclusion let me add with full emphasis: if the Holy Spirit exists, it can only reveal itself in the light of the negative.
In his History of Religious Ideas, Eliade cites numerous examples from the Far East where stones were believed to possess magical properties. They were sites of hierophany, with some deities emerging directly from rock.
A stone was used to seal Jesus’ grave, its emptiness symbolizing resurrection. It is also the meeting point of two photographic series by Andrzej Różycki: stones and Pensive Natures, where the author identifies with Christ.
A juxtaposition of the two series opens up a broad emotional palette. Despite their stillness, the stones lead us from pitch-black to hope and light. Similarly the Pensive Natures, Różycki serving the full range of Christological iconography, from a beaten and humiliated figure to apotheosis and ascension.
Locus suspectus is the Latin equivalent of the German term das Unheimliche (“the uncanny”), the title of Sigmund Freud’s famous 1919 essay in which he investigated, in the field of aesthetics, the originary meaning of the return from the unconscious of repressed or overwhelmed contents. The category finds an application here in the joint presentation of two little known photographic series by Andrzej Różycki, Glacial Erratics (1968-69) and Pensive Natures (1991). The latter is a folk art-inspired self- portrait series in which the artist presents himself as tormented Christ.
Presented together, the two series constitute a locus suspectus, producing the sense described by Freud: of something strangely familiar and frightening at the same time. Thus they update the field of our everyday life, in which sacred sites start arousing dread, returning as the repressed from our private and social history.
Rafał Lewandowski
22/09/2017 - 20/10/2017
ASYMETRIA
Only positively about the negative. Oh holy, underappreciated negative! Photography ends where the negative fades away. The eternal luminosity of photography. Towards light. Light-substantiality irretrievably lost. What is life without love etc. And in conclusion let me add with full emphasis: if the Holy Spirit exists, it can only reveal itself in the light of the negative.
In his History of Religious Ideas, Eliade cites numerous examples from the Far East where stones were believed to possess magical properties. They were sites of hierophany, with some deities emerging directly from rock.
A stone was used to seal Jesus’ grave, its emptiness symbolizing resurrection. It is also the meeting point of two photographic series by Andrzej Różycki: stones and Pensive Natures, where the author identifies with Christ.
A juxtaposition of the two series opens up a broad emotional palette. Despite their stillness, the stones lead us from pitch-black to hope and light. Similarly the Pensive Natures, Różycki serving the full range of Christological iconography, from a beaten and humiliated figure to apotheosis and ascension.
Locus suspectus is the Latin equivalent of the German term das Unheimliche (“the uncanny”), the title of Sigmund Freud’s famous 1919 essay in which he investigated, in the field of aesthetics, the originary meaning of the return from the unconscious of repressed or overwhelmed contents. The category finds an application here in the joint presentation of two little known photographic series by Andrzej Różycki, Glacial Erratics (1968-69) and Pensive Natures (1991). The latter is a folk art-inspired self- portrait series in which the artist presents himself as tormented Christ.
Presented together, the two series constitute a locus suspectus, producing the sense described by Freud: of something strangely familiar and frightening at the same time. Thus they update the field of our everyday life, in which sacred sites start arousing dread, returning as the repressed from our private and social history.
Rafał Lewandowski