Axis mundi: roadside shrines and crosses exhibition, National Museum of Przemyśl Region, PL

Axis mundi: roadside shrines & crosses

City of Przemyśl History Museum – part of the National Museum of Przemyśl Region, PL
Przemyśl, Rynek 9.
22nd February – 24th of March 2019.
Opening: Friday 22nd February, 6PM.

Exhibition open:
Monday – closed,
Tuesday – Saturday: 9AM – 4PM,
Sunday: 12-4PM.

I cordially invite you to Przemyśl (South East of Poland) at my 2nd individual show of the Axis mundi: roadside shrines & crosses series that I worked on between 2012-2018. The essence of the series is reflection on the relation: man-nature-sacred. The space (landscape) plays here an important role as a factor shaping spiritual experiences and community bonds.

I will show works that I made between 2012-2018, including large format prints (90x60cm). In Gorlice, unfortunately, I was unable to show the 3D panoramas. Exhibition in Przemyśl will be complemented with this important element plus one photograph from Tarnów. The show will therefore gain a new dimension. Somehow in the counterpoint to this technology from the 21st century, I recommend visiting by the way the 19th-century photographic studio of Bernard Henner, in which you can see the reality of the photographer’s work from a historical perspective.

My exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue with my short foreword, selected images and an essay by a renowned art historian and critic, dr Krzysztof Jurecki. You can buy it at the Museum or via my website (“publications” tab). 

Below you can read a fragment of the essay of dr Jurecki:

“[…] The chapel-shrines and crosses from Krzysztof Ligęza’s images determine, what is an important discovery of these photographs, the “axis mundi” – spiritual fireplaces that existed from the beginning of civilisations, in its various geographical and mental spaces, as Eliade wrote. In this intention Zofia Rydet had been photographing houses, looking like temples filled with objects of religious worship, in her famous mega-series, The Sociological Record 1978-1990. […]Landscape plays a key role in the series. It presents places of worship, people and animals. The artist photographs both small towns and urban landscapes, showing religious life in urbanised places, sometimes using the so-called “bird’s-eye view”, which is a slightly different, wider point of view, and still rarely used on a larger scale. Sometimes the people are frozen in prayer and concentration, while others are in motion, which introduces an element of dynamism and visual contrast. An important role is also played by animals shown here, including flying birds. These are not artificial actions or the use of sensation, but the manifestation of a specific vision of the world. The role of the spiritual community is emphasized by light, also in the form of a rainbow, which is depicted here as a good, divine sign of the covenant. Landscapes are complemented by the portraits of psychological kind, depicting the local residents. However it is within the limits of reality.”

The exhibition and the catalogue were made as a part of scholarship programme of 

Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland.