“Carpe diem”
„Carpe Diem” is a cycle of seven black and white triptychs. Each of them was created on a particular day of the week and signed with the protagonist’s name. The continuity of the photograph dates indicates that all the presented situations took place during one week. The middle image in each of the triptychs is a portrait of a naked woman who looks straight into the camera – the two remaining ones depict fragments of a flat. In the last triptych, both the figure and the interior are blurred; moreover, the name of the woman remains secret. The exhibition of the photographs is accompanied by an installation in the form of a bed with crumpled bedding onto which a film is projected: „dreamy”, undulating images of the protagonists of the project. Thanks to the installation, the viewer realises that it is an illustration of a man’s intimate relationships with women during one week. The project aims at presenting a specific relationship between a man and a woman. I do not assess or make suggestions – the viewer is free to interpret the images in their own way. Through showing the women’s rooms I mean to make their characters more familiar, as well as add depth to these apparently superfluous relationships.
„In the case of “Carpe Diem” we encounter art, an art project, not documentary or documenting photography. Makary only applies here the strategy of document. He puts the viewer in an uncertain situation, making them make their own interpretative choices. He does not answer any question, on the contrary, by blurring accessible borders he forces the viewer to establish them by themselves. In fact, they are decisive with regard to the perception of the works”.
Karolina Jabłońska – artist critic
Individual exhibition “Carpe diem” in FF Gallery / Łódź, Poland
“…Is it out of contrariness to the young generation that the author addresses taboo topics? It is not for profanation, I suppose, or for provocation and shock? For each of us life is a canvas on which we create our own myths. Perhaps, the author wants to indicate that the contemporary myth does not have to be an embellished and exalted fiction.”
Prof. Grzegorz Przyborek
Individual exhibition “Carpe diem” in PAUZA Gallery / Kraków, Poland
These erotic – by no means pornographic – triptychs bring up associations with the surrealist oeuvre (Brassai, Salvador Dali), and still more with Jeff Koons who experimented with his then wife Cicciona several years ago, creating works ranging from – as he put it himself – from soft to hard porn. Naturally, creative activity has had rich erotic connotations, which turned into analyses of human sexuality, from its very beginning. This is the type of works we encounter here. I wonder, which photograph is the most important? I would say, the one bearing the date of 26 June, because it is deprived of the woman’s name as she became intangible and ephemeral, and, as a result, suggestive of many things, without literalness, which sometimes is an asset, but more often a flaw of photography. I also find the unusual camera position very interesting – the camera has become a sexual weapon, which is confirmed by Susan Sontag’s postulate included in her essay On photography, containing a multitude of definitions and stories concerning the development and characterisation of photography. The background constitutes another engaging aspect. In one of the photographs there is a teddy bear. The meaning of the cycle may also be interpreted differently in terms of man and woman’s sex life.
Krzysztof Jurecki – artist critic
