Piotr Dumała, Lykantropia, 1981
The animations of Piotr Dumała will be exhibited at Black and White, the new exhibition at the Van Abbemuseum in the Netherlands, opening the 8th of June. The multimedia collection explores social and political commentary in sequential art.
The Van Abbenmuseum’s description of their upcoming exhibition sets the tone for the works to be displayed: “Black or White flirts with what is politically incorrect. It aims to provoke visitors to reflect upon their own behavior and its interrelations with social conventions.” Assembling a collection that is “bizarre, provocative, sometimes coarse, exaggerated or ugly,” Black and White shows the potential for political and social commentary in sequential art.
This overview includes animated films, video installations, drawings and comic strips from a diverse group of artists. The unifying thread among the works is their ability to provoke and disquiet. Playing on themes of isolation and exclusion, the collection holds a sort of funhouse mirror to reality. Familiar scenes and stories are distorted, becoming dark and grotesque, demanding that the viewer reflect on how these images reveal facets of their own reality.
Piotr Dumała, who in 2003 was presented with the Wielki FeFe Award for “doing his own thing in cinema,” is an ideal addition to Black and White. The exhibition includes two early works, his debut, Lykantropia (1981) - a reflection on social pressures and conformity told through a pack of hungry wolves devouring each other as they turn into humans - and Dumała’s Czarny kapturek / Little Black Riding Hood (1983). This reworking of the classic fairy tale questions the original's absolute morality, blurring lines between good and evil.
Along with the ability of his works to spark reflection, viewers will likely be drawn to Dumała’s distinctive aesthetic. Dumała’s animations - instantly identifiable in all his films - are the product of the “plaster panel technique” he developed as a student at the Fine Arts Academy in Warsaw. This method allows him to rework drawings, adding layers and nuance to the images. Employed in concert with his philosophical reflections on society, Dumała’s unique animations are a persuasive medium for an artistic exploration of psychological and social conditions in which we live.
Like the other works collected by Black and White, Dumała’s films offer an innovative, provocative vision of contemporary society. His works will be joined by those of animators and graphic artists from across the globe, including Michael J. Baers, Sue Coe, Robert Crumb, Emma De Swaef and Marc James Roels, Extrastruggle, Prabhakar Pachpute, Pan Perjovschi and Ton Smits. The exhibit runs from the 8th of June to the 11th of November, with ccompanying lectures, workshops and a 3-day summer course. For more information, visit http://vanabbemuseum.nl/
Source: The Van Abbemuseum, press materials 06/06/2013
Edited by: Alena Aniskiewicz