b. 1964, Dębica, Poland; lives and works in Hilo, Hawaiʻi

Backdrop for the Memory, Image #9
2022
Laser cut giclée print on plywood, BLK3.0 paint
Edition 2 of 3 + 1AP
17 x 13.5 in (framed)
Signed on reverse

Andrzej Kramarz is a Polish-American artist, lecturer, curator, and editor of photography books. Using photography, found pictures, archives, audio, and video, Kramarz is primarily a conceptual artist who creates installations that explore the function of people, places, and objects in the construction of mnemonics — those fictions by which we revivify the past, extrapolate the future, and invent the present.

The Backdrop for the Memory series interrogates dislodged memories, utilizing a collection of a family’s photographs captioned “Morskie Oko, 16 August 1931” and “Fotografie Rodziny Schönwetterów” [Photographs of the Schönwetter family]. There are trips to the mountains, picnics, and the health resort in Rabka, Kraków, Poland, with the Wawel Royal Castle in the background. Other than that, the photo album, now yellowed and faded, provides few further clues.

 

“Only a few of the photos were described, as if their owner had little doubt that recognizing people and places would ever be difficult for him. Those are all the clues. I don't know if there are sequels anywhere, or other albums. Are there any living people immortalized in the photos? Are there descendants? Has anyone survived? This seems to make the most sense: When people are lost, a context is lost along with those who might bring meaning to family photographs.”

Kramarz has exhibited, and curated numerous exhibitions in Europe and the United States. Prior to the fall of communism in Poland, Kramarz managed an underground art-zine and improvised music band. Early in his photography practice, he was employed by the daily Gazeta Krakowska (1993–1996). For the next few years, he freelanced and published in major Polish weeklies. In 2007–2008, he was deputy art director at the Photo Month in Cracow. In 2006–2010, he was chairman of Imago Mundi Foundation (Poland). In 2010–2013, he was part of the Photo Proxima research project carried out by the Ethnographic Museum in Cracow, in collaboration with the Fratelli Alinari Museum (Italy), studying private collections of families’ photographs. He taught photography at Academy of Photography in Poland and was visiting lecturer to the Ethnography and Anthropology Department at the Jagiellonian Univeristy in Cracow.

Since moving to the United States in 2010, Kramarz has had solo exhibitions at galleries and museums in Europe and the U.S. In 2016, he served as artistic director at East Hawaiʻi Cultural Center in Hilo. He lectures on photography at Hawaiʻi Community College and University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo.

See also | Backdrop for the Memory Image #2 and Backdrop for the Memory Image #6 by Andrzej Kramarz


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