In 1978 I began my Sociological Record (...) it was meant to be a kind of embalming of time, it was or rather is supposed to make permanent what is already changing, and what, although it is still a real reality, is ceasing to exist and might soon be hard to imagine. It’s supposed to show faithfully a man in his everyday surroundings, inside the border that on the one hand is the decoration of his immediate surroundings – the interior, but which also shows his psyche, and sometimes says more about him than he himself can.
Zofia Rydet
For over a decade, as part of the Record that the artist herself calls a "true human destiny", Zofia Rydet took thousands of pictures of inhabitants of Polish villages, from the SuwaĹki region to Silesia. She created a unique portrait of a disappearing world and human transience. This is one of the most important projects in the history of Polish photography and at the same time the most highly respected art created by the artist. Sociological Record 1978-1990, the exhibition that can be seen in the Czytelnia Sztuki from 22 June, presents a selection of around a hundred works from the cycle.
Zofia Rydet, although associated with the Gliwice Photographic Society, from the very beginning followed her own distinct creative path. Her original, yet simple style is characterized by an unusual sensitivity. The moment of portraying the other person is for her significant and important. The formally simple, direct approach enables her to extract what is true in a person.
The photographs included in the exhibition come from the collection of the Zofia Rydet Foundation. The co-organiser of the exhibition is the Foundation for the Visual Arts (the exhibition was presented during the Krakow Photomonth Festival in 2008). Welcome to Gliwice!
Zofia Rydet Sociological Record 1978 - 1990
Curator: Andrzej RóĹźycki
Art Reading Room | June 22 - September 15, 2012
exhibition vernissage
22 June (Friday), 18.00
admission to the vernissage – free
Curator: Andrzej RóĹźycki
Czytelnia Sztuki
Willa Caro, ul. Dolnych WaĹów 8a, 44-100 Gliwice
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