Jan Dziaczkowski, "Japanese Monster Movies", 2008. Source: DOBRE Cultural Platform
If I could reach the border, then I would step across features two artists known for appropriating iconic symbols of global art and accomplishments - such as the supernatural monster films of Japan, the majestic architecture of Vienna or everyday scenes shown through a different lens. Through such works, they create a new lexicon for contemporary cross-border existence.
The idea of "the border" in the title symbolises the historical divide between Eastern Europe and the capitalist world, which continues to effect the identity and outlook of people across the former eastern bloc. These symbols function on geographic and political levels, and on the level of cultural iconography. The hope of crossing the border into "a better world" is one shared by the public at large and the artists - those who could not literally cross the border used their imagination to divine what lay on the other side. This imagination was spurred by western iconography that was smuggled into the east. By adopting western icons into their work, artists underlined the significance of such a mash-up on a personal level, and the broader level of artistic expression and aesthetics.
The exhibition features the collages of Jan Dziaczkowski (Greetings from Holidays, Keine Grenze and Japanese Monster Movies) alongside the black-and-white reprints and videos of young Ukrainian artist Andrij Bojarov. The images create a surrealistic vision of a world without borders, where different spaces, place and times merge to create a conglomerate view of global existence, incorporating the "known and the unknown, domestic and foreign, real and surreal", according to the exhibition organisers, Anthropologists in Art. This postmodern reality is set outside the rules of everyday life, forming a fantasy collage of everything we know up close or from afar.
According to the curatorial statement, the exhibited works by Dziaczkowski
recall actual postcards and show an extraordinary craftsmanship of "assemblage" and technical precision. In his collages Dziaczkowski resurrected the spirit and technique of Surrealists' games of cadavre exquis (from the French exquisite corpse), and exposed himself to the allure of free image association. [...] He experimented, made surprising statements, showed unexpected similarities and parables, thus drawing the viewer into a fascinating journey through the collective imagination.
Jan Dziaczkowski (1983 – 2011), painter, photographer and collage artist, referred to the surrealist spirit of the French avant-garde at the beginning of the 19th century, as well as Polish Pop Art and the New Figuration of the 1970s. Many of his works take the format of the postcard and plays a game with the setting. The idyllic atmosphere of a tourist's vision of Japan is dramatically disrupted by the invasion of giant octopuses, bears, creatures of origami, King Kong, purple dinosaurs, giants - all magnified to grandiose proportions. The American landscape is dotted with the figures and icons of history and pop culture - Indians copied from classic westerns, symbolic objects known from television shows like Twin Peaks and other fictional vestiges of American cinema, music and literature. His postcards series feature majestic examples of Western European architecture implanted into an urban landscape of socialist architecture and monuments. Jan Dziaczkowski died tragically in the Tatra Mountains in 2011.
Andrij Bojarov (born 1961) is an artist based in Lviv, Ukraine. He uses methods drawn from photography, painting, video and photocopying to create novel landscapes and situations. He also works as an interior designer, applying his unconventional hand to everyday spaces. He is a member of the Ukrainian Photography Alternative.
The exhibition opens on the 6th of April at 5 pm and runs through the 18th of May 2013. It is organised by the Anthropologists in Art foundation and the DOBRE Cultural Platform, together with the Foundation for Visual Arts in Kraków. For more information, see: www.gallerywm.com and www.facebook.com
Author: Agnieszka Le Nart
Source: Anthropolgists in Art, DOBRE Cultural Platform, Polish Embassy in The Hague
02.04.2013