Blackness

For Szymon Rogiński the topographic journey is his point of departure for formal and artistic research. This journey brought him to the bat nature reserve situated in the former bunkers of the Ostwall fortifications in the Międzyrzecki Fortified Region. His attempt at isolating the abstarct patterns the uncanny animals draw in space is at the same time a journey into the matter of the photographic image, where abstraction emerges.

The historical and theoretical context for these works is the tradition of avant-garde abstraction, especially connected with the transcendence of form. This tradition claims that “abstraction” is something that can only be found beyond the visible. ”To reach it, the image should be cleared of all that is accidental and external, invoking the purely plastic expressive principles. Exposing the essence of the image, one exposes the Essence of the Universe”.

Rogiński sees black as the color of the Universe. However, he searches it in objects, spaces, planes which materiality translates directly into the textural density of his photographs: of ice, of asphalt, of concrete. They are cool, but not distant. Universal and material. Thereby „Blackness” transcends the classic avant-garde dichotomy that essence is always hidden behind appearances. As the artist claims himself: perfectly black objects do not exist.

Ewa Opałka, Blackness

Various sizes,
inkjet print on cotton paper
Edition 3 + 2 AP