Room for Finding Yourself

[…] Patryk Różycki, whose focus on himself determines the sense of his installation, urges us to ask questions and search for our true selves through introspection. By creating the extensive and intricate site-specific installation titled Room for Finding Yourself, whose centre is occupied by an almost empty tent illuminated by video projections and surrounded by photos, drawings, graffiti, inscriptions and elements of sculpture, Różycki clearly reasserts his right to egocentrism, negating the obligation to be involved or interested in anyone or anything other than himself. In the artist’s opinion, this attitude – quite radical and morally ambiguous from the perspective of both current and historical discussions about the social responsibility of art – can also benefit others. Różycki expressed the hope that his room would inspire the audience to engage in similar self-analysis, look at themselves and “understand their own strangeness.” This practice requires a certain duality – being at the same time the object and subject of one’s scrutiny – and, by annihilating the distance between the observer and the object, theoretically eliminates the influence of the background or context of the action. […]

Małgorzata Miśniakiewicz: Concealed. In: Art Reviev SURVIVAL 17. Catalogue, Wrocław 2019, p. 62-63.

photo: Małgorzata Kujda