Straight Line Held tight
The hobbies of politicians often determine not only their public image, but also, in many respects, that of their country. Bill Clinton’s saxophone was heard the world over, and everyone responded to his “happy music.” Vladimir Putin’s image-makers capitalized on his skill in the martial arts. Ukraine’s first President Leonid Kravchuk is known as a good chess-player, and his successor Leonid Kuchma likes to play the guitar. One’s hobby also makes an impact on one’s way of thinking. Marek ZЧlkowski, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Polish Republic to Ukraine, is a devotee of art photography.
Kyiv’s Tadzio Gallery has staged a display of his photos, ending on Tuesday June 18, representing Mr. ZЧlkowski’s “objective vision.” Objective on two counts: spotting and capturing an object through his camera lenses, then singling out that object. The rest is as biased as one wants, befitting a true artist and producing an individual, easily identifiable style. Marek ZЧlkowski wrote, “I photograph several motifs: architectural sites, streets and roads we walk, and people in this environment. I deprive these images of all mildness, mood, or literary touch. I add flatness to the depth of a natural image, so what we know as distance is no longer there. I stress the contrast, expressiveness, colors, and above all the dynamics produced in our environs by lines.” Discussing his works, one must proceed from the line. His photos are all lines, parallel, crossing, thin against a blank background, and those outlining an object and creating a whole linear world. In this sense his works are akin to the graphic art with its minimalism and frame-like fragmentary quality, drawing one’s attention to separate elements that are interesting and symptomatic but often inaccessible to broad vision.
The Polish ambassador portrays an artificial urbanized world: cables laid by man, high-rise apartment buildings, the sky crisscrossed by high voltage streetcar lines. With the invention of electricity, radio, and telephone communications we get tangled up ever tighter in all those lines and invisible hazardous magnetic fields. There is no escape to the primordial dream of a cave with its cool and quiet solitude. Yet man continues instinctively to look for a way out. This search is also reflected in Ambassador ZЧlkowski’s photos: a long branching off underpass, a covered way by a construction site, colorfully lit windows at night, people walking away from the camera toward a lilac garden, wearing umbrellas. Many pictures are clearly divided into colorful halves. Here the color symbol is not as important as that inner break, dualism, struggle of the opposites that, in turn, creates an integral picture.
