collage, paper, 30 x 40 cm
signed, dated and titled on the reverse
unique
The work, in its own way, problematizes the issue of collage as a technique based on the capture of images and meanings, on cultural appropriation, apropriation and the related further alteration of meanings. Fragments of 1960s iconography, which the artist has been working with for years, in various ways touching on the birth of consumerist culture and the question of the commodification of the body, are here juxtaposed with a fragment of an old Japanese calligraphy notebook. What comes from our culture and is comprehensible to us is met with mysterious writing that remains a mystery to us. This raises the question of the limits of appropriation and aestheticization: to what extent can we pluck images and objects from other cultures and incorporate them into our stories? This question remains unanswered - it is, after all, a question about collage technique as such and the ways in which, as Europeans, we symbolically appropriate the world. At the same time, Notebook I touches on the ambiguous relationship between writing and image - we look at the mysterious writing as if it were a painting, stripping it of its meaning.... Or maybe it is just the opposite and it is the writing that gives an unexpected (surreal) meaning to the image? What does it mean to "read" the image? What does it mean to look at the writing as if it were a painting?
BIO
He understands artistic activity very broadly: he makes conceptual photographic projects, makes collages and photomontages relating to the history of photography and past styles, and carries out projects on photographic archives. He is also active in the theater arts space as a co-author of stage texts, video and set design. He is the author of essay books on visuality and photography, published by słowo/obraz terytoria, Karakter and Czarne publishing houses. Graduated from PWSFTviT in Lodz and Warsaw University. Individual exhibitions: at the Archeology of Photography Foundation, Asymetria Gallery, Indie Photography Gallery (Tel Aviv), Parade-Fest (Kharkov); group exhibitions: among others at the Art Museum in Lodz, Studio Gallery, Zachęta, Nowy Teatr, Kordegarda, Exhibition Office, IF Fort, Ludwig Museum (Budapest), Mickiewicz Museum (Istanbul), Galerie Anne de Villepoix (Paris) and three times at Paris Photo. Author of performance projects shown at Biennale Warsaw, Kyoto Art. Center, Bienal Saco, Polish Theater in Bydgoszcz. Co-curator of exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw and Studio Gallery. Works in collections: Gewy Museum, Studio Gallery, Hotel Europejski, Hotel Puro, Krzysztof and Joann Madelski and others.
