Stupor (11 IX)

A different way of seeing

curator Bogna Błażewicz talked with Zbigniew Rogalski before the exhibition Stupor (11 IX)

Bogna Błażewicz: Potential viewers of the exhibition will certainly be intrigued by its title. Stupor, to put it bluntly, means stupor. However, I think that some guidance is needed, which means for this exhibition.

Zbigniew Rogalski: Issues related to perception, visual disturbances, features of visual perception are for me the main motive of research. The apparent obstacles to the clear perception of reality, the subjectivity of the reactions of the senses and the most varied “other” ways of seeing are of particular interest to me and are a source of inspiration. After many years of painterly analysis of the various peculiarities of perception, the time has come for a stupor...

Stupor is an effect that becomes a kind of cognitive oxymoron. I look at a branch, for example. I get lost, I start thinking about something else, I peel off. After a while, the vision of the branches fades, the eyes aim only technically, the projection in the mind dies off. The situation is a contradiction, I see and do not see at the same time. This is an interesting moment, as if there is conflict in the very sight. Of course, this is not only about visuals, the process also takes place on a psychological level.

BB: After the attack on the World Trade Center, on the anniversary of which we are opening the exhibition, our perception of the world has changed. We have lost not only a sense of security, but also a sense of certainty about the reality that we know, about what we are looking at.

ZR: Of course, a lot has changed, there are tons of texts, analyses of how this event changed the world. What's interesting to me is what has really changed... geopolitics, relations with the Arab world, airport controls, sense of danger. It was a big black swan, then more flew in, in whose shadow we live.

The impact and associated shock is followed by adaptation to new conditions; a classic, evolutionary characteristic of Sapiens. The two towers are already the story we are used to.

When I realized that the exhibition would have its opening in the quarter century of the attack, I thought I would like to refer to this fact. However, I did not have a plan for fire, smoke and debris, it was more of the so-called ordinary life. It is as if I looked at the horizon of the sea and realized that today is passing this round anniversary. Then something starts to happen. The clarity of vision is broken, as if on some meta level there was a soundless explosion. Some kind of visual effect appears, depending on the specifics of the mind.

BB: Your painting Jabłonka Voerman refers to the painting of the Dutch artist Jan Voerman (1890-1976). Why are you so fascinated by his work?

ZR: When I saw this picture, I couldn't take my eyes off it. It is exquisitely painted, and in the layer of associations here it is simply boiling; the first fruit, the promise of abundance, like a frame from a film about lost security... The idea of my interpretation was precisely that I stare at this painting for a long time, so long that the view begins to deteriorate, subside under the action of the effect of a tired eye.

BB: At the exhibition you present not only painting. What determined the choice of other media such as photographs, objects?

ZR: I would like to note that we decided together (laughs). I think it was important to choose the work according to the topic. This triad of media allows for different perspectives of visually describing the processes that occur in looking. After all, there is still a fourth medium — the World Map artwork, an older work that we found to be accurate.

The properties of individual techniques open up opportunities for communication and expression. The effect of “seeing through a tear” in painting would not be as suggestive as in embroidery. A cascade of tangled threads, on black wool is the extremely plastic equivalent of a wet eye seeing the light of the film's endnotes...