DIETHARD LEOPOLD | Between Play And Pervasion. A Note On Marko Zink’s Photo Series “Swimmers”

For instance – providing just one of several examples – a Japanese parasol is floating into the frame, drifting from the upper margin into a shade of continuously darkening blue. We still remember the images of the March 2011 Tsunami. But even without this context, one might wonder what the purpose of a parasol under water is. In any case, it will no longer be able to shield and protect anyone, if that what it was meant to protect us from, is now all around us, filling all nooks and intervening spaces. This reminds us of a haiku by Basho, in which “fishes’ eyes are filled with tears”. What a beautiful, sad image which is entirely impossible at the same time. And, also this umbrella, reminiscent of a catastrophe, is a beautiful, contemplative picture, creating a moment of nostalgia, owing in vain, drifting through the water completely devoid of meaning, destined to vanish into the darkness of the deepening blue, eventually to be entirely absorbed by it. Death and life, beauty and horror, are interwoven.

An instant of supernatural beauty is evoked. This is also just one example: a delicate white fabric drifting through the water to assume the form of a grand splendid shell. This is the ephemeral nature of shapes, demonstrating the transitoriness of existence. Marko Zink shows us that shapes are being created – even if the human sense of perception is either too slow or too fast. We grasp, and sense that the shapes of these objects matter are not static, but owing, floating, sometimes very slowly, over long periods of time, like the evolution of species. Rigid shapes and owing transience, insisting upon the I and the inevitable passing of time, sweeping away and changing everything, all these layers are metaphorically placed one upon the other, just as translucent pictures forming one single theme: “No enlightenment without illusion, no illusion without enlightenment.”