What Krzymowski finds most striking is the effect on the viewer who has observed an image several times. He or she often notices details, such as a background figure or a tropical breeze as the frame climbs the trunk of a palm tree several times in succession. The repetition is often so seamless and the image so pleasant that we follow a tourist along a sandy beach, handy-cam in tow, without realising that we're looking at the same frame five times in a row. The same holds for sunlight reflected on a pool's sparkling surface. We're not surprised to see the same people as the camera circles the resort lawn, because this is exactly what happens when one is on holiday after a week or two of running into people at the dining hall, at golf or at the beach. Taken separately, an image highlights the beauty of the place, while repetition makes an austere statement on consumption in a global marketplace where leisure is a valuable commodity.
The effect is more pleasant than such a stark description, thanks to Krzymowski's painstaking detail in making repetitions seamless, particularly in the two-minute video Boys. An extended fragment from 73, the piece shows two boys playing with a ball in a swimming pool. Repetitions flow like waves, each building on the next to carry the narrative progression. The boys stretch and leap in pursuit of the ball, with staggered pacing giving a melodious, choreographed feel to their energetic bursts of action. As a tongue-in-cheek reference to Godard's statement "All you need for a movie is a gun and a girl", Krzymowski asserts that "All you need to make a video are two boys and a yellow water-polo ball".
73 and Boys were presented at the Liverpool Biennale as part of the Bloomberg New Contemporaries presentation of 30 of this year's most promising graduates of the UK's top art schools. In 2009 Polish artist Konrad Pustoła was also included in the exhibition and in 2011 two female artists of Polish origins, Agata Madejska and Agnieszka MM Kucharko, were also exhibited. Krzymowski, as the only Pole in the group, said he felt at home in the international setting of London's art and academic circles.
Time, repetition and counting have played key roles in Krzymowski's work since 2010, when his performance-art piece Time Being in the London Underground illustrated the passage of time through human movement. The artist's body and hands indicated time as if he were a human clock, expressing time's importance for big-city residents around the world, for whom every second is precious as they bustle from one place to the next. The performance was documented on film then printed as posters that were displayed in the metro. The piece was commissioned by Art Below, a foundation that supports public art, particularly the works of young artists.