Mala Gallery, Warsaw, 8, Zamkowy Sq.
From March 2 to 26, 1999
Opening / Performance: March 2, 1999, 18.00 h.
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Zbigniew Tomaszczuk- Obrazy ktore pamietam z przeszlosci - The pictures I remember from the past

 

Zbigniew Tomaszczuk - Mala Gallery
Zbigniew Tomaszczuk from many years has been looking for answers emerging at borders of mutual influence and relations between individual "methods of image recording". It is well known that technological and civilsation acceleration we face lately introduced some confusion both in terminology and practice of photography. An image may be recorded by means of photographic still camera, movie camera, video recorder and since recently it can be also written as a computer file. The general problem that preys on Tomaszczuk's mind is not only of technological nature. The artist analyses during his actions with audience a diversity of image recordings, he juxtaposes photography with video and film. He is looking for differences but he also finds similiarities by considering e.g. that relation between Polaroid and photographic recording is the same as relation between video recording and film. He is more interested in problem of communication, of how to get instantly to the viewer thanks to instant registration than in final effect of aesthetic nature.

Another aspect of his activity is inclusion such techniques like pinhole camera to the area of documentary recording. Connection of traditional or openly archaic methods like pinhole camera and monitor screen and electronic recording is also of symbolic nature. It emphasises the fact od some continuity in preservation of an image in spite of using such different methods. It appers that every technique, even that most disciplined and technologically programmed may yield unexpected results in spite of depicting reality, like it happens e.g. in pinhole photography.

Photographic performances of Zbigniew Tomaszczuk raise questions whether documentary recordings of reality are really documentary. If the belief about objectivity of photographic or electronic recording we have been having until now can be still maintained? If we should free photography from the feature attached to it from begining - that it registers what it sees? And perhaps there is something more on these photographs? Maybe there is something written on them we cannot perceive yet - irrespective of character of recording made.

It seems like Zbigniew Tomaszczuk's quest preserve these question for the future.

Marek Grygiel

 

Zbigniew Tomaszczuk - Mala Gallery

 

Zbigniew Tomaszczuk - Mala Gallery
[ T ] HE basic thesis for the exhibition refers to relation of photography to another methods of image registration, in particular to video, TV1 and computer.

It is, for example, a relation to moving image that video is. Reduction of moving (naturally) video picture to still frame underlines documentary character of photography, which in the age of incredible possibilities of computer processing becomes its most essential feature, which can be defined as a link between image and object.

I have illustrated the relation to computer with reproduction of Albrecht Durrer's engraving on which Eve is handing to Adam the apple - this time it is Macintosh's apple.

The performance I make during exhibition is continuation of actions which I have been doing from many years 2 . It is connected with my career as a instructor of photography (firstly as an employee of the Centre of Cultural Animation and now as a lecturer at the School for Commercial Advertisment in Warsaw). It is an attempt to connect art behaviour with promoting photography. In this action it is participation of audience that counts. The viewers participate in making a video sculpture. The video sculpture (or video object) is about problem of memory. The essential to this performance is the fact that it is recorded on the Polaroid material since the possibility of direct recording is identical here with possibility of direct reproduction of video tape. Polaroid for photography is what video is for film. For me it is important distinctive feature of Edwin Land's invention which shifts stress from problem of aesthetics to problem of communication.

The series Pinhole-TV-Polaroid deals with problem of "embalming the time". A comment to this realisation I have included in my text "Photography expansion of new media" in the book "Photography: reality of the medium", ASP Poznan, 1998: "In these pictures I am connecting an archaic construction of pinhole camera with contemporary light sensitive material of Polaroid in order to enable use of very long exposure time which yields synthetic image with movie-like structure. This film, however, cannot be treated in linear way since pictures here are imposed one upon another and make kind of stratified movie. Such film cannot be played now. But if we assume that photographic negative is a recording of energetic state of the moment photographed, then perhaps in the future we will be able to reproduce a picture of the reality thanks to the energy bewitched in the photograph. Connection of pinhole camera and screen of contemporary TV monitor means also for me a contnuity of tradition and modernity. There is another convergence too, namely the unexpected final result of picture produced by pinhole camera which is parallel to an unexpected effects of many contemporary interactive installations."

1)For example, the selfportrait with TV pilot is a comment on: He rules who keeps the pilot and so called zapping.

2) Habitat - Lucznica 1989, To Alchemists - Galeria Dzialan, Warsaw 1992, A Small Window Pane, Warsaw 1993, I will not allow the nature to do me - Festiwal "Poza czasem i przestrzenia" - Grojec 1995, Magic of photography - Centre for Contemporary Art 1998, Warsaw.

Zbigniew Tomaszczuk, February 1999

 

 

Zbigniew Tomaszczuk - Mala Gallery, Warsaw, March 2nd, 1999. Photo Robert Kowalewski/GW

 

Zbigniew Tomaszczuk - Mala Gallery, Warsaw, March 2nd, 1999. Photo Robert Kowalewski/GW

 

Zbigniew Tomaszczuk - Mala Gallery, Warsaw, March 2nd, 1999. Photo Robert Kowalewski/GW

 

Previous Tomaszczuk's exhibitions in the Mala Gallery:

See also:


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