The Old Town, Rose, Ball, 1973

In 1973 Bakowski created three series of works which further expanded upon the formal experiments first used in the earlier set titled “Marek”. The initial photographs were reproduced, then cut and montaged again according to a mathematical scheme of his own invention, different for each series. This is how, as the artist claimed himself, “through multiplication and reorganization of the photographic material according to a mathematical discipline” he strove to “change the perception of an object (theme), not changing the object itself, neither destroying nor deforming it.” From that point the principle of creating compositions according to a mathematical-logical scheme became the founding principle of works which Bakowski described using his own term as “photographic surfaces”. In the three series discussed here the artist pursued a study on changes in the perception of a structure of an object (“Ball”), a spinning motion (“Rose”), and the phenomenon of the disappearance of the right angle (“The Old Town”), creating more and more abstract constructions with each plate.