Polacos. New art in Poland
Artists: Leon Tarasewicz, Pawel Kruk, Joanna Rajkowska, Elzbieta Jablonska, Monika Sosnowska, Magisters, Izabella Gustowska, Leszek Knaflewski, Cezary Bodzianowski, Zbigniew Warpechowski
Curator: Marek Wasilewski
New art in Poland
Leon Tarasewicz (b.1957) Graduated from Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Tarasewicz, at present one of the best known Polish artists, represented Poland on the 49. Venice Biennial. He was showing his paintings in the galleries of New York, London, Berlin, Stockholm, Warsaw and others. At present he is creating his paintings in close relation to the architecture. In Barcelona Tarasewicz will show his paintings on the pavements of Plaza Reial. American art critic Lilly Wei wrote that Tarasewicz work "cannot be contained, cannot be framed, that it erases the boundaries between the inside and outside, the perceived and realized."
Pawel Kruk (b.1976) graduate of Poznan Academy of Fine Arts, exhibited in Poznan, in Italy and National Gallery Zacheta in Warsaw. In his works Kruk impersonates legendary NBA player Michael Jordan. Displaying on the wall the inscription: I always wondered how it would have been to play for New York the artist refers to dreams of hundreds of thousands teenagers all over the world.
Joanna Rajkowska (b. 1968), graduate of Krakow Academy of Fine Arts and Jagiellonian University, Krakow, took part in exhibitions in National Gallery Zacheta and Centre for Contemporary Art in Warsaw, in Hallways Contemporary Art Centre in Buffalo (USA) in Wiesbaden Kunstverein and others. She refers to the marketing strategies in the way it was done with food products and cosmetics. The artist not only uses the current advertising techniques; her products are made in accordance with all the norms of the professional production lines and are not deceptively similar but simply identical with those we are buying every day.
Elżbieta Jabłońska (b. 1970) graduate of Department of Fine Arts at Torun University refers to the aesthetics of modern wrappings in her project entitled. The artist has produced a set of plastic advertising bags and placed them in the zip lock type wrappings. The task of the audience who has come to the gallery is to exchange these bags for their own, taken from home. In this way impossible to foresee arrangement of signs, pictures and inscriptions comes into being, which each time refer to the world of consumption and replace art.
Monika Sosnowska (born 1972) graduate of Poznan Academy of Fine Arts and Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. Her works usually originate in connection with architecture; they are decorative mural paintings referring to the aesthetics of industrial interiors or lower middle-class living rooms. The artist creates thus nonfunctional interiors or leading astray signals deriving from visual industrial communications. Labyrinths of smaller and smaller little rooms with smaller and smaller doors, blind hatches, illusions of space are closer to ordinariness than we are willing to admit it.
Magisters group created by Hubert Czerepok (b.1973) and Zbigniew Rogalski (b. 1974), both graduates of Poznan Academy of Fine Arts. The photographs they have exhibited lately are very strongly rooted in Polish reality of the beginning of 21. century, which - parodying the title of the first Polish science-fiction novel - they called perversely 'the silver globe'. There is a strong element of the feeling of nonsense and futility of life's efforts in their works, idiotic on the surface photographs of acting the fool boys. Hubert Czerepok likes the quotation from Stanislaw Lem's novel "Diary Found in the Bathtub": -For this is gobbledegook sir, the captain repilied coldly, Diversionary gobbledegook. Art., literature, do you know what its purpose is? To divert attention!"
Izabella Gustowska (b. 1948) she is a graduate of Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan. She belongs to the most important polish media artists. Exhibited at XLIII Venice Bienalle, 19 th Biennale de Sao Paulo and many others. American art. critic Denise Carvalho wrote that in Gustowska's art metaphoric languages offemale sexuality and identity are depicted in the midst between form and language, representing the invisible state of the female pleasure." Gustowska will present a video performance (duration 20-min) She is going to fall. The artist will wear "metal wings" with 14 small monitors attached, every second of them is connected to a video camera which is filming the audience, other monitors are displaying the sentence "she is going to fall" at the same time we can observe two video projections of falling woman figures on the walls of la Capella.
Leszek Knaflewski (b. 1960) graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan. represents generation of artists especially active in the eighties. He was a member of the art. group called Kolo Klipsa which exhibited at Foksal Gallery and Zacheta Gallery in Warsaw in Wielka Gallery in Poznan and other important places. His individual shows took place in Poznan, Brussels, Hannover and other places. At present Leszek Knaflewski works with the sound installations and makes sound performances. He is going to present a performance using a coffin-like instrument made by himself. (duration 20min)
Cezary Bodzianowski (1968) graduate of the Rijksakademie in Antwerp is a performance artist who conducts his very peculiar actions on the streets. He is interacting with the situations in everyday life, like street traffic, jogging, horse races, family photographs etc. He exhibited in Foksal Gallery in Warsaw, Zderzak Gallery in Krakow and Tirana Biennale in Albania. In 2002 he was given a title of the artist of the year by "Pegaz" the television weekly cultural program In Barcelona Bodzianowski plans to get into a football match and interact with the audience.
Zbigniew Warpechowski (b. 1938) studied at Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow and Krakow Polytechnic, the oldest artist presented in the project is the best known polish performance artist, he gave more than 200 performances in 25 countries but he has never been to Spain! He represented Poland in Documenta Kassel and many other important venues. He makes performances with the use of simple objects from everyday life. Warpechowski writes that: "It may seem funny to some people that I feel responsible for the fate of Polish art., andall the while I know the what a hopeless situation I am in, bearing the label of "artist performer" a confessed member of the avant-garde"...
Sponsor: Caja Madrid. Obra social
Sponsoring media: El País i Ràdio 4
Collaborate: Schilling