Looking at Igor Omulecki's work, one can get the impression that his photographs function above genre divisions, usually defining the internal dissimilarities of the medium of photography. Most often his name is associated with documentary, although this notion has been significantly blurred these days. Omulecki also not infrequently takes directed photographs, in which - in contrast to documents - subtle arrangements, unnatural lighting and a multitude of various props play a leading role.
Some of this artist's series are considered documentary, despite the fact that the scenes depicted in them are more like a performance played out for photography. Regardless of how Omulecki's individual works are created, the atmosphere of the reality he captures seems to be the same. For in most of them we see a world filled with a mood of the uncanny, full of situational paradoxes and illogic, theatrical spaces and ludic rituals. Moreover, the area of Omulecki's interest is closed in the "peculiarity" of Polish reality, in which the artist meticulously searches for unreal moments and surprising events. The "sauna" series is a good example here.
All the photographs in this series were taken in a nocturnal, wintry space, in which the blackness of the night contrasts with the white of the snow. Mostly into this bichromatic and cold background were blended warm-toned images of undressed and sweaty people. In one work we see a naked man lying "cross-legged" in the snow in the center of the picture field. In another, a naked, wet and backward-turned man walks forward, spreading his arms out to the sides. Another photograph shows a figure completely immersed in the blue of the cold water of the break. The artificial lighting in these photographs resembles the effect achieved with the help of a theatrical spotlight, which not only brings out from the darkness of the scene the naked actors performing a bizarre ritual, but also highlights and marks an important part of the ongoing play, directing the spectator's attention to it.
Reading these photographs in the most literal way, we will only see people cooling their bodies after leaving the title sauna. However, the theatrical lighting and, above all, the unusualness of the depicted event direct the reading towards the symbolic layer. The strange and uncanny ritual played out by the naked actors stimulates the audience's imagination, bringing to mind associations with ancient Slavic rituals. Moreover, the intimacy of the depicted scenes situates the spectator in the role of a voyeur, in front of whose eyes Dionysian and irrational ceremonies are happening, brought out of the darkness by an artificial lamp. The sauna allows the characters participating in the event to purify themselves. This bodily catharsis, achieved by exposing the heated body to piercing cold, is accompanied by an equally purifying confrontation of elements, temperatures, and color tones. Through this, man finds himself in a place of boundary, between two opposite poles. It is the functioning on the border that provides him with external and internal purification.
Igor Omulecki (born 1973), in 1994-98 studied at the National Film School in Lodz at the Faculties of Cinematography and Photography; uses various media, such as performance, installation, film, photography; participant in many exhibitions at home and abroad; published in various magazines (Capricious, Cross, Elle, Eye Magazine, Exklusiv, Fluid, Machina, Shoots, Pani, Playboy, Pocko Times, Przekrój, Twój Styl, Vice, VIVA!).
The article appeared in issue 31 of "Fotografia Quarterly" in 2009