Poland

A problem of reference to death has an universal value. Transcendental and also historical and individual character of death defines her as leaving the past. Vanishing is each time different. In the context of Polish art the way in which it is reffered to has both: a vast tradition and is being a subject of redefinition. I present three Polish artists: Lukasz Skapski from Cracow, Agata Michowska from Poznan and Anna Orlikowska from Lodz, who in different forms struggle with a problem of vanishing and death.

The essence of their perception is the redefinition of the past individual, collective, social and cultural. The reflection presented by them is precisely marked with specific context of Polish history from the time after II World War and of Polish People’s Republic (PRL), but at the same time it finds it’s broad references in the perspective of contemporary art and culture.

Lukasz Skapski

Lukasz Skapski, one of founding members of Super-group Azorro, who has passed from performance and spatial instalations, through an interest in the light, to a junction of photography, video and ready-made, with strong social and humanistic meaning. His works from the serie „Machines“ and „Fitness“ combine photography, documental film and specific hand-made ready-made. Skapski presents us machines and devices constructed by amateurs from easly and cheaply obtained materials, spare parts, things found in scrap, which he tracks with ethnographic passion in villages on the south of Poland. They aren’t factory-produced and moved into the area of art like „Bottle Dryer“ or „Fountain“ of Marcel Duchamp, but devices DIY (Do It Yorself), whose handicraft‘s authorship Skapski acknowledges, himself feeling the author of the artistic idea.

Tractors constructed in the region of Podlasie close to Zakopane, like a tractor from Biorkow Maly (il. 1, il. 2) have been a response for the needs of small farms during Polish People’s Republic, in which mass-produced tractors had been not fitting in. 

Lukasz Skapski, "Machines"

Lukasz Skapski, "Machines"

Skapski moves them into the world of art high-lighting their values, not only the value in use and the exchange value, first of all their value in ethical perspective – they have been manifestation of opposition to the planned economy, and now they can also serve as an expression of opposition to corporate monopolies. They are also examples of autonomic creativity of peaple directed towards a community, which should admire the effect of the work, for example: the impressing Warburg Sam (il. 3, il. 4) or which should gather around them, as in case of hand-made „Fitness“ build in barns or some adapted rooms by young country men without work in Bronow (il. 5, il. 6). 

Lukasz Skapski, "LS Motors S-type"

Lukasz Skapski, "LS Motors S-type"

Lukasz Skapski, "Fitness"

Lukasz Skapski, "Fitness"

http://www.skapski.art.pl

Anna Orlikowska

Deep moral sense have also works of Anna Orlikowska – a young artist, an author of photographies, video films and installations – who, like Lukasz Skapski, starts from specific items and situations, but artistically tranforming them achives rather transcendental then social meanings. Guiding principles of many her realizations are memento mori and dance macabre, topos explicitly present in culture and history of art since Medieval times. Both „Souvenir“ from the year 2006, which is a cabinet stuffed to the limit with smashed tableware (il. 7), and the instalation from the yeras 2004-2007 „Sinking Room“ (il. 8) are legible references to unrelenting passage of time, which leaves some traces but also disappears in the darkness of history.

Anna Orlikowska, "Souvenir" 

Anna Orlikowska, "Sinking Room"

However photographies of the serie „Dance Macabre“ (il. 9, il. 10) taken in the year 2004 in artist’s home town Lodz, apart from calling for the context of transient, they also points it’s inscrutable mystery and ambiguity. 

Anna Orlikowska, "Dance Macabre"

Anna Orlikowska, "Dance Macabre"

This ambiguity appears also in video works of Orlikowska in which sho shows wriggling worms with classical music in the background (il. 11),  in  „Terminal Game“ (2007) (il. 12) or in the serie of photographies „Silence“ (2008) (il. 13), inspired with photographies documenting crime scenes and with our fascination with and fright of the death.

Anna Orlikowska, "Movie about Worms III"

Anna Orlikowska, "Terminal Game"

Anna Orlikowska, "Silence"

http://annaorlikowska.wordpress.com

Agata Michowska

An approach to the subject of the past and death presented by Agata Michowska – a sculptor, an author of video films, installations, photographies, poetic texts – is also metaphoric and alegoric, but her space is more fabulous.

It is most clearly visible in multi-media piece „Fairy Tale“ from the year 2006 (il. 14, il. 15), located in an abandoned cotton factory in Lodz, an inconic city for industrial changes in XIX and XX century, which consists of spatial realization, video and sound. Reffering to the history of Penelopa Michowska ennobles, „bewitches“ the reality. 

Agata Michowska, "Fairy Tale"

Agata Michowska, "Fairy Tale"

However, if you can refine an old cotton factory, it shouldn’t be done in case of tragic events. For this reason a piece „Travel“ from the year 2009 (il. 16), created for cycle exhibition which takes place annually at Prozna Street in spot of former Warsaw Ghetto, although also has the metaphoric character, it doesn’t intend to beautify the past but it opens us for it’s fantazmatic experience. A motionless man with a head covered with black hood is a executioner, a victim and ourselves – blind to the past, not seeing how another living plants a being cut in a planned manner, dictated by aesthetics. 

Agata Michowska, "Travel"

To issues related with history, memory, tradition, a nation and an identity reffers also video film by Michowska „History Lesson“ (il. 17), on which we see legs of a young girl, turing over pages of the book down on a table with her feet. This book turns out to be a symbol of objective history, The History of All Histories in which – as the auther says – „individal being are being dissolved irrevocably, moving to the non-existence“, and which is not being read by the young girl but profanated. 

Agata Michowska, "History Lesson"

In Michowska’s art the history is presented as carring meaning individual/subjective and collective. Both these meanings are combined in one piece:  „Josephine“ from the year  2009 roku (il. 18). Three video-projections which form „Josephine“  relativize the linear idea of the history to the time experienced from subjective perspective as cyclic.

Agata Michowska, "Josephine"

http://www.agatamichowska.com

dr Aleksandra Łukaszewicz Alcaraz

A Head of Institute of History and Theory of Art at Faculty of Painting and New Media at Academy of Art in Szczecin (Poland).

A specialist in a field of philosophical aesthetics and of theory of culture and art. Presents an interdisciplinary approach, combining elements of aesthetical and social reflection with an analysis of artistic events.

Publishes scientific, critic, journalistic and literary texts for example in: “Nowa Krytyka” (“New Critics”), “Konteksty” (“Contexts”), “Rita Baum”, “Obieg”.

A member of editorial board of philosophical review “Nowa Krytyka” and of Polish Society of Aesthetics.

Participating in many conferences dedicated to scientific, artistic and social issues, and in monographs published after them.

In the year 2007 organized at University of Szczecin a national conference under a title: “Feminism and Radicalism within social movements and critical perspectives” and co-edited together with Jerzy Kochan a monograph after it. In the year 2012 obtained honorable mention in competition of Stefan Morawski for the best PhD thesis in the field of aesthetics, which has been written under a supervision of Prof. Alicja Kuczynska at the Institute of Aesthetics on Faculty of Philosophy and Sociology on University of Warsaw, and elaborated on grant of Ministry of Science and Higher Education.

In the effect appeared the dissertation “Epistemological Function of Photographic Image” which is now being published by editorial Scholar.

Invited to organize a panel session on ”Performativity of Images in Social Context” for International Congress of Aesthetics, which will be held at the end of July 2013 in Cracow and for which has invited polish and American theorists.

Leading many artistic projects in cooperation with national and international institutions, for example: dedicated to French humanistic photography, to Spanish experimental cinema (with Centro de la Cultura Contemporanea de Barcelona) or a historical project dedicated to Empress Mary Feodorovna (who had been born in a main building of Academy of Art in Szczecin) (with other High Schools in Szczecin and in Petersburg).

In the academic year 2012-2013: Visiting Professor at University of Castilla-La Mancha, at Faculty of Fine Arts.

http://zona.akademiasztuki.eu/

The local context today – for me it means in-between. I have been living in Lyon almost three years now. I exist between two cultures, trying to constantly jump over an old historical and stereotypical division between two Europes. The most local place for me, where I can meet artists and co-workers on daily basis, is the virtual space.

In this context the local seems to be a personal construct, an outcome of individual story and geopolitical status. These, connected with the cultural heritage, brings up the groups which could be called local, as their relations are close and based on a certain rhythm of interactions.

Technological shift, which took place in early 1990s, had changed the primary function of a computer from a calculating or an image-editing machine into a cultural filter. It created an opportunity to exist in a global virtual village, to travel easily, to develop the professional network within a click or simple email exchange. Dictated by a relation between a man and a device, it obviously shaked an political and a social order, which can be notable in virtuality within other way.

Skeptically observing the enthusiasm about the Internet technologies, I found it interesting how one can  exist in between a real and virtual space and how this state can be expressed within the very contemporary language of new and obsolete media of art.  Artist selected here found their way to comment with contemporaneity and to reach to its cultural and technological resources. 

Radek Szlaga

Radek Szlaga is a painter. He graduated Academy of Fine Art in Poznan. He was one of the founders of an artistic group Penerstwo, which represented highly various techniques and aesthetics. Since early years he developed a radical and particular style, which one may call hyper-textual. Through constant reworked motives – heard or read stories, images seen – he is relating to his very personal situation: spread between Poland, the reality of barely developed capitalism, and a visible proof of it collapse – Detroit – where main part of his family migrated, he build his radical world view.

Szlaga reaches to motives present in both these realities in search for their historical roots. The images of black ghetto, Polish reality and 19th century colonialism are just few of motives constantly re-appropriated by the artist. Images, painted obsessively as a flux of thoughts, are juxtaposed in his on canvases. With another and antother layers of paint applied on painting surface and by sewing together pieces of previous works, he creates reach and referentially heavy art works. Szlaga’s visual language derives from a traditional medium of painting in deep relation in contemporary copy and paste aesthetic of Internet.

http://radek-szlaga.tumblr.com/

Anus Mundi, 153 x 140 cm, oil on canvas, 2014

Heart of darkness, 50 x 53 cm, oil on canvas, 2014 

My dad gave me a sewing machine before he left, 80 x 150 cm, oil on canvas

Milenium, exhibition view, 2014

Tymek Borowski

Tymek Borowski initially a painter “labeled” as one of new generation young painters called tired with the reality, who preferred to turn away from realism into the abstraction. His rich paintings, due to their rapid and outstanding popularity, become a cage for the artist himself. He decided to immerse in the reflection on art. With the animation How art Works (2012) done together with Paweł Sysiak, he brought up a substantial and controversial questions about art, the art world, a human identity, his place in a contemporary economical world and in a humanistic reflection.

He prepared numerous projects: the ironically didactic charts or videos about life and meaning of human existence supported also by more philosophical thoughts. His works are avaible on internet but they should not be defined by this medium. Using the web, as one of goods of our times, Borowski rather critically place himself in this reality. His recent project, held together with Pony Project Customized Digital Art gives a viewer an opportunity to purchase an artwork produced together with an artist. By choosing its scale and after taking part in an interview prepared by Borowski, he assists the artist in creation process. Than the artwork is ready for the customer to be printed where he wants. 

Links to works:

http://www.customizeddigitalart.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZ-eSTuf7Ko

http://tymekborowski.com/

Because It Is, How It Is, PSD file, 33465 x 16732 px, 2013

Gregor Rózanski

Gregor Rózanski is a part of the generation who grew up with Internet and for him its presence is obvious and natural. Living between Berlin and Warsaw he is observing the contemporary society. 

Staying close to the nature of the Internet, he appropriates the images. In his work Blue (2012), a straight reference to video made by Derek Jarman, he defines a key questions of his generation. He founds a surprising connotation between the Jarman’s narration held in his monologue about his sickness. Rózanski slightly changed the original text by replacing words “AIDS” or HIV with “Internet”, “virtuality” etc. It is striking how the meaning of modified sentences has changed and how precisely it describes nowadays reality dominated by technology. What is more, the title color had changed its status: apparently blue is the most frequently used in major companies logos today.

Searching symbols of commercialization and massive production Rózanski also questionates the medium of the exhibition itself, comparing it to the internet, as a reduced result of experiencing it, similarly to art and culture – speculating with references and ideas, constantly popularizes, wastes and rediscovers them when searching for the New, Better and More Interesting.[1]

[1] http://issuu.com/newartcenter/docs/gregor_rozanski_2013/1?e=9503786/9418297

http://vimeo.com/42197771

http://gregorrozanski.com/

From “Ikealism” series, Ikea loyalty cards for great minimalists, 2012-2013

Anna Tomczak

Born in 1984, Poland. Lives in Lyon. She graduated in Science of the Culture at the University of Warsaw. Her thesis about Derek Jarman’s eclectic output focused on syncretic and poetical aesthetic of his movie Caravaggio where he joined film, painting, music and performance. From 2004 she was an assistant curator and curator in Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, where she worked on solo and group shows of Polish and international artists. In 2013-14 she participated in 23rd Session of Ecole du Magasin in Grenoble where she co-curated Liam Gillick’s show re-apropriating his works form the 1990s. She is interested in the visual anthropology understood interdisciplinary. She is concentrates on a potential of internet in an artistic and a curatorial practice. As an art writer cooperates with two art magazines: the Polish Obieg.pl and the London based Contemporary Lynx, she also publishes independently. The  co-founder, together with Giulia Bortoluzzi of the curatorial collective recto/verso, a research collective of widely understood curatorial practices aiming to broaden experiences while investigating the nature of images in contemporary society. This multidisciplinary cooperative, believes that interaction and cross-pollination between disciplines and media create the potential for unexpected coincidences and startling revelations. 

recto/verso is a research collective of widely understood curatorial practices aiming to broaden experiences while investigating the nature of images in contemporary society. Our work is based on constant exchanges both within the collective and with invited artists, curators and writers; along with regular active exhibitions and writing practice. Starting from our recent interests, the anthropology of images, our research weaves between different disciplines such as philosophy, sociology, history, new media, architecture and many others. recto/verso’s constant interrogation on the nature and notion of images, aims to investigate their origins and status within a collective cultural memory, bringing up its potential revisiting of the past in visual montages, through re-contextualization and discovered found footage aesthetics. By establishing our own discussion protocol, recto/verso, whose inspirations are drawn from diverse cultural and academic backgrounds, creates a platform, a discourse resource  with a multidisciplinary and multimedia bibliography.

recto/verso was created in summer 2014 through Anna Tomczak and Giulia Bortoluzzi need to keep exchanging and dialoguing after a nine-month experience at the école du Magasin, Grenoble. The école du Magasin is an experimental laboratory where a small group of people, working collectively, question both theoretically and practically the role of curators in contemporary art. While Anna and Giulia were at the école du Magasin, they worked  with four other people on the realization of the solo exhibition by Liam Gillick From 199C to 199D. This first collective experience established the basis for a wider research and practices.

More on our website: http://rectoversocollective.wordpress.com