Recognition: Szymon Rogiński and Milán Rácmolnár (March 2017)
RECOGNITION
Exhibition of Szymon Rogiński and Milán Rácmolnár in Platan Gallery
Opening March 29th, 2017 at 7pm
Opening speech by Patrycja Rup art manager, curator
Recognition is an invitation for the trip to the yet unknown zone with seemingly familiar sites and objects here revealing their complex and appealing properties. With a dose of mystery fed on nostalgic connotations of sci-fi and famous conspiracy theories we enter the world which exists only here, as a fusion of photographs creating research material as for the fictive investigation. This visual story with no exact time and locations, provides just few hints, from space shots to laboratory documentation and gloomy landscapes, which leaves a room for speculation.
Polish artist Szymon Rogiński along with Hungarian artist Milan Racmolnar contribute in the narration about mysterious places, events and objects, while each of them reveals different piece of a puzzle in this recondite story. Artists’ intervention in the landscape or modification of the various objects bring these from the sphere of safe and rational everyday experience to disquieting field of unexplained phenomena. While visual tricks do not remain unnoticed, the vision of this uncanny world might be too alluring to be rejected.
Pictures presenting something uncertain, light effects enhancing the atmosphere of mystery. There is a room for suspicion caused by a weirdness of shot, can be just a small element incoherent with the situation. Special status of photography and its high position as documentary medium made it significantly trustworthy for the society since is realistically depicted everyday life presented in media. Meanwhile photomontage is barely 30 younger and widely used since then, first in photographic darkrooms, then with much more advanced and efficient digital image editing. Even though photomontage and other ‘photography manipulations’ were gladly used by artists, propaganda, also reporters, sometimes causing discussion over ethical concerns and became widely recognized practice, still the charm of mockery is powerful enough to build narrations around mysterious photos and videos.
While science fiction B-movies were gaining enormous popularity from 30s till 50s, greatest American stories about Roswell (1947), Kenneth Arnold (1947), or Lubbock Lights (1951), just to list the loudest cases, stimulated the imagination of crowds and made National UFO Reporting Center busy with thousands of reports submitted yearly, which so far can be counted in millions. The time of increased reporting which is 1950-1960, coincides with the beginning of space conquest and intense military development still in fear of the Cold War. The science fiction films popularization along with later virtual reality expansion helped to create the borderless imaginarium, which can comprehend simultaneously characters and narrations from different genres. Its richness and ability to adapt and merge stories proved repeatedly, that in the immersive fictive worlds, everything is possible and everything can be depicted thanks to advanced technology and special effects.
Middle of the forest in the night. Weird creatures. Unfamiliar equipment in the lab. We came here to be mocked and mesmerized, to take part in the mysterious investigation of places we know already from somewhere, maybe other pictures or films, dreams or games. There must be a link, the trail must lead to answers. Some of these could have been seen even in real life, but thanks to subtle intervention of the artist they don’t seem the same anymore, we let the beauty of undiscovered and unexplained to play with our reception and imagination again.
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