Jan Berdyszak - "Generator of Ephemeral Photographs" (2007), 
                             "Photo Reinstallations (1975/1993)
21.11.07 - 19.01.08, opening: 21.11., at 6 pm
Foto-Medium-Art Gallery, Karmelicka 28/12 Str., Kraków, Poland

On 21 November at 6:00 pm the Foto-Medium Art Gallery in Kraków will hold the opening
of an exhibition of the work of Jan Berdyszak. On this occasion Jerzy Olek will give a paper
under the title of Reflections devoted to the artist’s work.

The exhibition will present work representative of Berdyszak and the consistent, analytical
and philosophical reflections that he has been developing since the 1970s.

A mirror-object entitled Generator of Ephemeral Photographs (2007) is a reflection of the artist’s theoretical and practical pursuits, oscillating around the possibilities of creating reflected images archetypal of photography. Berdyszak explores the essence of photography using, paradoxically, non-photographic media. He evokes transient, self-creating images that merely pass through
the present, like reflections of the real world in water. Berdyszak calls these twin natural phenomena prephotography and considers them to be deeply embedded key elements
of photography, the main problems of which are centered on the notions of reflection, trace
and imprint. Generator of Ephemeral Photographs is a creation which is a meditation
on the essence of the medium, aimed at discovering its nucleus, revealed only in the close contact of the object with the viewer. It reaches beyond, suggesting separateness, oppositions
and the inadaptab ility of reality to its reflection in a large blue mirror.

Berdyszak’s work in the Photo Reinstallations cycle (1975/1993) incorporates the work
into a wide space – this time it is a white gallery wall. This suggests the entanglement
of the artistic object in a larger universe, a potential reality, of which it becomes a fragment.
The geometric forms cut out inside the photograph expand the space of this work and lift
the limitations traditionally identified with photographs.

The Photo Reinstallations cycle and Generator of Ephemeral Photographs presented
at the exhibition tell an artistic story undermining the adequacy of object perception and its paraphotographic representation, and so they directly participate in the ancient discourse
on the relationship between reality and its artistic representation... more: