Opening: April 14 (Friday) / 5:00 pm / The exhibition will be available until May 29, 2023.
In the diversity and chaos of the contemporary media world, contact photographs stand out for their attention to the image and the way it is shaped. Contacts are photographs with a unique condensation of image components. Their essentiality and extraordinary plasticity of space are associated with certain principles related to the creative process, which determine the essence of this medium. Contacts are a return to the origins of photography with a large-format negative obtained by the photochemical method, and a print that is made directly from the negative, by contact, without enlargement, in a photographic darkroom. The first contact exhibitions in Poland were organized by Jakub Byrczek at the ,,Empty" Gallery in Katowice and at the BWA Gallery in Jelenia Gora. Between 1989 and 2002, four editions of the exhibition were realized, shown in various places in Poland and abroad. On the thirtieth anniversary of the first ,,Contacts" at the BWA Gallery in Jelenia Gora in 2019, we returned to this idea with the exhibition ,,Contacts - cont.".
In 2023, we are presenting another exhibition in this series entitled. , "Contacts. On the Road," which is a review of contemporary contact photography. The exhibition includes artists for whom large-format photography is an important means of artistic expression. The project has an inter-local range, the invited artists live in Jelenia Gora, but also in various parts of Poland, and abroad: in New York, Prague or London.
Participating in the exhibition are: Marcin Andrzejewski, Adam Bencal, Jaroslav Beneš, Jakub Byrczek, Monika Cichoszewska, Jerzy Chaberek, Sławoj Dubiel, Marek Gardulski, Maciej Herman, Janina Hobgarska, Jacek Jasko, Eugeniusz Józefowski, Ryszard Karczmarski, Marcin Kiełbiewski, Grzegorz Kukla, Andrzej Jerzy Lech, Marek Liksztet, Marcin Masiewicz, Jacek Michalak, Tomasz Michałowski, Tomasz Mielech, Halina Morcinek, Dorota Mościbrodzka, Mariusz Mykicki, Krzysztof Niewiadomski, Marek Poźniak, Wojciech Sternak, Rafał Swosiński, Marek Szyryk, Waldemar Śliwczyński, Tomasz Walczak, Jan Zawadzki, Petr Zinke, Przemysław Zoryło, Tadeusz Żaczek.
Organizer of the exhibition: Art Exhibition Office in Jelenia Góra
Curator of the exhibition: Joanna Mielech
Honorary Commissioner: Jakub Byrczek