Radek Szlaga, "Szara strefa" (Grey Economy), 2012, photo: courtesy of Galeria Foksal
Radek Szlaga's critical look at culture, history, the Polish tradition and Western consumerism takes on the form of an artistic bomb of alternative reality, tucked away in the heart of Warsaw
The title of the exhibition is a reference to the story of an American mathematician and terrorist with Polish roots, Ted Kaczyński. Between 1978 and 1995, Kaczyński (better known as the Unabomber) sent mail bombs to people whom he deemed responsible for technological progress, marking the envelopes with the initials FC, for Freedom Club. His intent was to fight the destruction that advancement brings in its wake. In his opinion, technology is the enemy of freedom, which he understands as the individual responsibility of every human being to satisfy their fundamental needs.
Radek Szlaga transforms the Foksal space into an anarchistic film set, filled with images, notes, and objects. It is a kind of visual manifesto by which the artist shows an alternate version of reality. The exhibition addresses the issue of the underground economy, which includes the illegal production of bimber – Poland's version of moonshine. Szlaga's work, based on a fascination with the absurdity of everyday life, popular culture and common clichés, involves a mood of anarchy. Seemingly incongruous elements are juxtaposed side by side, including: films stars and cows, rural women and angels, clowns and fans. The artist uses unnatural, slightly psychedelic colours, often leaving his paintings unfinished.
Szlaga evokes the FBI's sweeping investigation of the Kaczyński case in order to, once again, point to the mechanism of manipulation in a field which we wish to associate with logical analysis. In this way, art also becomes a manipulative factor, a field wherein success can be determined by shrewdness and social engineering. The machinery of moonshine production, which entails profits that verge upon the illegal, comes to symbolise the circulation of information, as well as a rapid transformation. This apparently ironic depiction of the global village betrays Szlaga's fascination with human beings, with the strength of their inanity, of their insanity, of their desire to possess, of their desire to rule and, the most dangerous of them all, of their urge to survive.
Anna Czaban commented on the artist's work in The power of imagination, or the curse of visibility? :
Szlaga's art has a dimension of understanding, which does not mean that it is primitive. Primitive are only the characters which he paints. Speaking intuitively, I mean that, by taking on the establishment, the artist acts as if unconscious. [...] Images of Ted Kaczynski can be seen as symbols of ambition and genius-reaching to the borders of madness, violence, evil
Radek Szlaga was born in 1979 and graduated in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań in 2005. Since 2007, he has formed a part of the Penerstwo group, together with Wojciech Bąkowski, Tomasz Mróz, Konrad Smoleński, Piotr Bosacki, Magdalena Starska and Iza Tarasewicz. He is associated with the Leto Gallery in Warsaw and has taken part in numerous exhibitions both in Poland and abroad, including shows held at Warsaw's Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, the Arsenal Gallery in Białystock and Galeria Miejska Arsenał (the City Arsenal Gallery) in Poznań. He took up a residency at New York's ISCP in 2011, and his work was also presented at the Frieze Art Fair by the Leto Gallery in April, 2012.
Opening: 6th of June, 2012
The exhibition is open until the 10th of August, 2012.
Galeria Foksal
ul. Foksal 1/4
00-950 Warsaw
Tel/Fax: (+48 22) 827 62 43
www.galeriafoksal.pl
Editor: Roberto Galea, SRS
Source: press release, www.galeriafoksal.pl