Democrats – Lviv, 2004. Jacek Dziaczkowski Photo Exhibition
August - December 2013
Conference room, Center for Urban History
In the days leading up to the Orange Revolution the author made over 300 black and white life-sized photographic portraits of Lviv residents the symbolic orange color of the day. (The orange tint was added later by the photographer in his Warsaw studio.) Dziaczkowski's work deftly anticipates the advent of this "decisive historical moment," opting instead to bypass the most crucial events occurring on the squares of Kyiv and Lviv, the whirlwind of emotions, the heightened public mood, and the rush of the standard-bearing crowds. In contrast to the usual, bright images filled with the "beautiful masses" looking "so European" which gathered in those days of November and December 2004, these images are stark and static. The photographer, it would seem, captured his subjects and their unexpressed hopes and expectations for their future. And it is this potential, these imminent choices and actions which reveal the force – the secret heart – of these images.
The exposition was comprised of two parts: full-sized portraits placed on the walls at the locations around the center of the city where they were originally photographed, and reduced format photos exhibited in the Center of Urban History.
The exhibit was a part of the "Studio of Record – 2013" Project.
The "Studio of Record – 2013" project was headed Andriy Bojarov.
Jacek Dziaczkowski
was born in 1957, and was lost too soon, passing in 2006 in Warsaw. In 2004, in addition to this “Democrats” project entitled “Lviv – 2004”, he created a documentary series on the post-soviet children’s playgrounds and Lviv’s Lychakiv Cemetery. He founded the www.pracowniadokument.pl website (the site is able to be viewed with older internet browsers).
Andrij Bojarov
is an independent artist and curator, lives and works in Lviv. The major medium the artist deals with most often is photography in its varied forms and genres. For Boyarov, his own works, discovered anonymous archives, re-taken images from other carriers, as well as appealing to other artists and reusing their works, make up the material he uses to compose his message of the author. As a curator, he closely works with the topic of Lviv Avant-Garde and modernist art. The recent large exhibition is – “Montages. Deborah Vogel and a New Legend of the City.”
Additional support for the event was provided by the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.
