Vernissage: Friday, 1 February 2019, 7.00 pm
Do you believe your own eyes? Can they ever be trusted?
The art of “collage” is the pars pro toto of contemporary art. It not only implicates the process of allegorical montage – template strategies for a range of art, research or else curatorial practices – it also reveals something we forget about all too easily: the way images function in ways which are appropriate for our day and age – times of fake news, Raytracing, memes, simulacra…
In presenting fragments torn from greater wholes, and so stripped of source contexts and transformed by the machinery of terrible imaginations, Weronika Gęsicka diverts our attention towards the notion that today every image exists in a thousand places all at once, in thousands of various contexts, and what is more – always turns out to be a sliver of itself, a trace smudged twice over: (a) in terms of that which it represents, as well as (b) that which it happens to be linked to elsewhere. There are no other images – only if they be beyond history. In history we are condemned to experience the incompleteness of image. Iwo Zmyślony, curator
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In my projects, I handle subjects concerning various aspects of memory. They include scientific and pseudo-scientific theories, mnemonics, and various types of distortions. I am also interested in the sole processes of memorizing and forgetting, which – depending on a multitude of factors – constitute the basis for the way we perceive the surrounding reality. The main field of my activity is photography, but I also create objects which function as individual pieces or constitute the base for my images. An important part of my art is working with archive materials from various sources, including stock photos and images found on the Internet, but also police records, and old press photography. Weronika Gęsicka
Weronika Gęsicka. Born in 1984 in Włocławek (Poland). In her projects she addresses topics related to memory and the way it operates. She graduated from the graphics department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. A winner of Foam Talent (2017), Spotlight Award (2017, Belfast Photo Festival) and LensCulture Emerging Talent Awards (2016). A finalist of Prix HSBC pour la Photographie (2017), Prix Levallois (2016) and the ShowOFF section of the Cracow Photomonth Festival (2016). She received a grant from the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage in 2008.
Iwo Zmyślony, curator
Exhibition organised in partnership with Gallery Jednostka in Warsaw