Collection refers to the system of teaching art history based on using visual material on slides. This method, commonly used before the arrival of digital reproduction, is still applied in many lectures.
The titular Collection is a set of colour diapositives prepared for lectures at Film School in Łódź. It has been developed since 1970 as a database on art and artistic transformations. The collection, counting ca. 20,000 slides comprises images of paintings, sculptures, and architectural works. Most of all, however, it reflects the changes in the perception of contemporary cultural phenomena. The collection is continuously supplemented with slides illustrating new objects and art issues of the 20th and 21st centuries. The apparatus used for circulating it: projectors, trays, and mounts – has become its inherent part – a material complementation of the ephemeral visual records.
The purpose of building the collection is to create a set of visual information which most coherently reflects the colour quality of the documented art objects. The slides, usually created by museum institutions, present art objects from their collections, with special care given to a faithful reflection of colours. However, due to physical and chemical processes, the colour photo-sensitive material becomes distorted.
The premise of this project is to present materials from two thematic sets picked out by the owners: one being the “model” lectures on modern art and the other – the evolution of visual consciousness and various ways of depiction related to it. The author observes specific gestures of the keepers of the collection which reveal their personal relationship with the series, within which each object has its own place and meaning. The intimacy does not only lie here in the custodians’ approach, but also connotes the author’s relationship with users of the collection – art historians, who are also the artist’s parents.
The essence of the work is the unique vision of the collection that employs video recordings and photographs, as well as an analysis of the process of changes in colour occurring on the earliest diapositives.
The work was created within the framework of the Sputnik Photos Mentor Programme.
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