Goer

What emotions does the word “absurd” evoke? A pragmatic will get confused. An analyst –
annoyed. A snob will feel contempt. An optimist will burst into laughter.
Perhaps only one category of people will admire the absurd.
First of all these are children who can turn the absurd into a fairy tale and break the rules of
logic. Then there are writers who materialize absurd to collections of fairy tales for children or to
complicated plots of sci-fi thrillers that would be equally appealing also to pragmatics, analysts
and snobs. There are also artists and photographers. But their special type makes spectators
linger at their “absurd” pictures. That makes critics feel awkward questioning themselves with
the eternal issue “What should be done?”. Should the creation be called a philosophic
masterpiece bringing its author to Olympus downhill and should they enjoy their sagacity? Or
should this “nonsense” be laughed at, unfortunate artist scathed, and they would leave their
trace in history as the most objective and just? But what if it’s talent after all? What then? Fame
of a boring conservative, numb conceptualist, geniuses persecutor and butcher?..
No matter what the experts, critics, connoisseurs might think and say, there is a person in St.
Petersburg who admires the absurd even though he is not a child anymore. His name is not
familiar even to the most obsessed bibliophile because there are simply no books written by
him. He can not be called a painter because he has an idea about paintings only based on the
collection of the Hermitage and the Russian Museum. And talking about photographers, they can
praise or blame his works looking at them but they unanimously claim that it is no photography.
And this statement is difficult to argue with because even an amateur photographer knows the
meaning of the word “photography” by heart.
What is it then? The absurd? What category can you relate Bogdan Zwir to if the absurd does
not only admire but also inspire him, has inner depth meaning of what is hidden in the sub-
consciousness of everyone and what people who consider themselves normal and sane try to
stay away from. No wonder that for hours people look at “ Pleasures garden” by Bosch and read
“Dark Tower” by King and listen hundred times to the Moonlight Sonata by deaf (absurd!)
Beethoven..
Contrasts and paradoxes were surrounding Bogdan since childhood: a wooden village house
without any conveniences that drowned in snow till roof, it was situated next to a modern
building of a famous bank and an awl-like TV tower. Winter frosts till -60 and dry summer heat
of +40 with sandy air from Lena. House foundations on piles growing from permafrost, and ugly
heat pipelines spoiling cold sky. Then St. Petersburg. Mystic inconceivable city built on an absurd
spot by a controversial person with the cost of a paradox number of lives and expenses. The city
that in absurd time became symbolic, isn’t it a perfect refuge for Bogdan Zwir? Weird author.
Who is capable of distracting anybody from idle thoughtlessness, tearing away from a swamp of
indifference, evoking craving for self-study and bringing fruitless ideas to life. Showing in the
absurd the creative dynamics of magic images, his real fantasy is full of them.