Monika Chlebek, The Game, 2012, oil on canvas, 25 x 33 cm, photo: Zderzak Gallery
The tenth edition of Berliner Liste, the international contemporary-art fair, will feature work from the “new surrealists”, with artists including Monika Chlebek, David Czycz, Łukasz Stokłosa and Erwina Ziomkowska.
Artists involved in the 2013 edition of Berliner Liste work with galleries in New York City, London, Tokyo, Washington, D.C., Moscow and Warsaw. Over 130 exhibitors will represent 30 countries, with the focus of the 10th edition on a young generation of artists known as the “new surrealists”. The Kraków gallery Zderzak has played an important role in this new group's emergence and will be participating in Berliner Liste, as it has for 20 years.
The "new surrealist" generation comprises artists born in the 1980s. Their group premiere at Zderzak was for the exhibition Moon Hostel, curated by Marta Tarabuła. Following this, the artists organised solo shows at Zderzak. Their style is marked by a disinterest in politics, social pedagogy, advertising and front-page news. The work of the "new surrealists" doesn’t deal with everyday life but probes forms and images derived from reality. Realism is used in order to reveal alternative, indistinct sides of hitherto familiar things and places. Their presence at Berliner Liste is their latest group appearance after the exhibitions Mambo Spinoza (2010) and Blue Velvet (2011) under the auspices of Zderzak.
David Czycz, Untitled, 2011, oil in canvas, 65 x 56 cm, photo: Zderzak Gallery
In the beginning, Berliner Liste was an organisation of satellite events that complemented much bigger ones such as the Art. Forum Berlin. Today the trade shows are an important part of promoting contemporary art. The organisers focus on uncovering promising artists and showcasing young art. Mediums included painting, drawing, sculpture, installations, videos, performances and photography.
Zderzak opened in 1985 in Kraków as a private, independent institution of culture. Acting beyond constraints of censorship, it opposed both regimes monitoring art at the time, the communist authorities and the Catholic Church. In the 1990s, the gallery debuted artists including Wilhelm Sasnal, Joanna Rajkowska, Ryszard Grzyb, Grzegorz Sztwiertnia, Basia Bańda, and Rafał Bujnowski.
David Czycz (born 1986) studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, where he currently lives and works. He received his diploma from Prof. Leszka Misiaka in 2011; before graduating he held his debut at Zderzak in the summer exhibition Science & Fiction (2009). Following this show he participated in the Moon Hostel exhibition then held the solo shows O wadach / Defects (2010) and Ciała stałe / Solid (2011) at Zderzak.
Czycz’s style is opposite to the consumer aesthetics articulated by the Ładnie Group for 10 years. He indulges in the grotesque and in parables while arranging his works into narrative sequences. His paintings reveal worlds highlighting the dark side of things. An example is the tendency for modern man's anxiety to be silent. His passion for small creatures is also characteristic, with frequent depictions of diurnal and nocturnal insects: moths, flies, ants, beetles, spiders.
Erwina Ziomkowska, Untitled, 2012, photo: Michał Ramus
Erwina Ziomkowska (born 1983) graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice. She concluded studies in 2008 with a diploma in painting and drawing under K. Cieślika and L. Tetli. Her work often surprises viewers because the nature of her topics are fleeting. Zderzak hosted her debut in the group exhibition O dziwnych uczuciach / Strange Feelings (2011). Ziomkowska has since participated in events within Poland and abroad, including a 2010 show in Berlin at the Zero Gallery.
Ziomkowska defines her work as “abnormal”: something that prevents the proper functioning of the object through a reversal of the characteristics and uses of the material. “It’s a kind of perverse game that uses the existing structure of our perception and consciousness”, the artist has said. Shoes or a nightgown pricked with straight pins so they can’t be worn; a swing loaded with bricks that it is difficult to move; drawings perforated and stabbed with pins. These are examples of the artist's extraordinary imagination, which shares much with modernist aesthetics of cruelty and eroticism.
Monika Chlebek (born 1986) attended high school at the National School of Plastic Arts in Kraków and received her diploma in painting from Academy of Fine Arts under Leszka Misiaka in 2011. Chlebek held her debut at Zderzak as a part of Moon Hostel (2009) then organized her first solo show, Złe sny / Bad Dreams. In 2011 she presented the series Mrówka kryje się pod ubraniem / Ants Hidden Under Clothes and Zderzak released an unique album dedicated to the collection.
Chlebek works in the mediums of paint, collage and drawing. She belongs to the generation of artists who have “turned away from reality.” Her work may reach for images of familiar objects but, just like in dreams, the forms push the limits of reality.
Łukasz Stokłosa, Poczdam (Potsdam), 2013, oil on canvas, 70 x 80, fot. Galeria Zderzak
Łukasz Stokłosa (born 1986) graduated from Kraków’s Academy of Fine Arts in 2012 under the guidance of Jacka Waltosia. His diploma work, Smierć i pożądanie / Death and Desire, was dedicated to motifs of Saint Sebastian in culture. Zderzak hosted his first solo exhibition, Zimowa opowieść / Winter’s Tale (2011), with paintings of the interiors of palaces, winter landscapes and portraits of film stars in an atmosphere of romance and decadence. His second solo show, Skład obrazów / Image Composition (2013) was also held at Zderzak and featured work with a similar tone that attracted the attention of collectors and art lovers.
Stokłosa's work is often inspired by popular culture, film and television and derives pleasure from utilising kitchy aesthetics. His images are often sensual and intelligent, and waiver between attraction and repulsion - similar to the aesthetic found in film nior.
Translation: SMG 06/09/2013