Jerzy Riegel, born on January 10, 1931 in Bydgoszcz. A printer. Since 1967, member of the Union of Polish Art Photographers. Works with black-and-white photography. A master of a technique called isohelia. The author of several individual exhibitions, member of several group exhibitions (Bydgoszcz, Poland, Europe).
He photographs architecture, landscapes, portraits and genre scenes. These are works done in 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, black and white, using isohelia, bromine and sepia. The author will show photographs that were already presented, as well as unknown ones, from his rich archive.(…)
In Riegel’s photographs a man is most often a silhouette, a shadow. Architecture prevails. The artist has always been photographing things that will inevitably disappear and fall into oblivion. But he also freezes in the frame things that are important for the history of the city churches, significant buildings and tenement houses. The Parish Church, Granaries, the Klaryski Church it’s obvious that these photographs were taken by Riegel. He takes their peculiar portraits. Often, he waits for a long time for the proper moment, appropriate light, for this one minute when a building is alone, without people and vehicles. Such are later photographs by Riegel. He copes with the subject itself, not with the situation he encountered. The same attitude can be seen in his approach to nature, landscapes and most of all to trees. It’s another world, but at the same time a wonderful architecture. He’s always got time and patience to wait for the rays of sun, for this light in which nature will fully reveal its shape and beauty. He’s a romantic. He’s got interested in isohelia, a difficult technique, which changes a common picture, gives it an air of oblique statement, creates a fairy-tale like situation. He wouldn’t achieve the mood in his works if he weren’t able to record on the film what he wants to keep, and then in his darkroom to achieve what he intended.
Elżbieta Kantorek

exhibition open from October 8 till November 6, 2010