Teresa Tyszkiewicz was an artist who was full of impulse and expression. Under the influence of powerful emotions, she would turn to various means of artistic expression — from video art to painting. In her art, she exploited her potential through a processual and ritualistic nature of creation. Over the years, she used her struggle with matter as an impulse for further artistic work.
The artist’s exhibition at the Profile Foundation provides a fresh outlook on Teresa Tyszkiewicz’s creative work. It is centred around the less recognisable works by the artist. She is most famous for experimental films she often made in collaboration with Zdzisław Sosnowski. Although they are a vital part of Polish art of the 1970s and 1980s, the ‘Aseret’ exhibition allows us to get to know another face of this Polish artist’s work. At the exhibition, we can become witnesses to further artistic research which has its origin in the experimental films made by Tyszkiewicz. In her paintings, she continues and expands on her interest in matter and feminine sensuality. The juxtaposition of her paintings and videos is an opportunity to capture the full range of her artistic diversity, in particular as far as the use of various media and materials is concerned. Expressiveness and sensuality are common features of both artistic disciplines. Teresa Tyszkiewicz may be seen as an artist who is being recovered in the canon of Polish art history, most of all due to feminist movements. The artist did not want to necessarily be directly associated with this type of activism, but her creative work fits in very well with this particular notion, for instance through frequent references to female corporeality and sexuality. For example, the ‘Aseret’ exhibition has numerous references to female pain. Paintings from the ‘Mugs’ (‘Gęby’) series shout out to the viewers, as if they wanted to release their emotions. Another example is the juxtaposition of shoes — high heels to be exact — and barbed wire which is also present in her other works. The enslavement of this attribute of women’s fashion can bear various connotations, for example, the oppression of the patriarchal system. Tyszkiewicz lived in Paris from the beginning of 1980s, hence her creative work has aligned with the Polish canon only recently. The exhibition at the Profile Foundation has contributed to paying due tribute to the artist and her place in contemporary art history. The gallery showcases her art which dates back mainly to the 1980s and 1990s. A publication dedicated to her life and creative work between the 1970s and 2020, the year of her death, provides an extra dimension to the exhibits.
Teresa Tyszkiewicz’s works contrast with the white interior of the gallery in an extraordinary way. Intense colours and materials used by the artist create an atmosphere of anxiety and hostility. This effect was obtained thanks to the multidimensionality of Tyszkiewicz’s art. The dominating red colour and sophisticated details encourage separate interactions with every single work on display. Various types of media and materials stir imagination and the emotionality of reception. At the same time, the way the matter is processed adds value to the works, expanding them by and through the creative process. Pins, which are a recurring element of a lot of the artist’s works, played such a function in her creations. As for paintings, spiking pins has become a kind of a ritual which is aligned with the artist’s struggle with matter and body and also engages both of these areas. The processual nature of using pins demonstrates the performativity of the phenomenon, which is confirmed by the rhythmical and tedious spiking method. Acting at the boundary of pain and pleasure, of life and death demonstrated, through photographs taken during a performance from the ‘Lips’ (‘Wargi’) series or on paintings (among others), seems to be the key to the understanding of the concept of a human being in Tyszkiewicz’s creative work. The artist’s daily struggle with the creation of works might also be interpreted as struggles with our daily lives in general, thanks to which such an act gains a therapeutic dimension. The above performance was an act of destruction and of crossing the boundaries of pain. The woman in the photographs has put on her face a kind of a cage made of barbed wire with raw meat spiked with pins. Such type of self-aggression enters a dialogue with other activities such as wrapping oneself up in cotton wool, in opposition to the above mentioned actions. Entering the exhibition space, we are exposed to discomfort, brutality, and to leaving our comfort zone. In the context of Tyszkiewicz’s creative work, such experiences gain cathartic properties. Her art goes beyond the boundaries of simply looking and compels viewers to experience art at various levels, also the sensual ones. The exhibition at the Profile Foundation will be open until 3 December 2022.
Written by Julia Lakhiani
Tyszkiewicz used different media. She produced short films, photographs, performances, objects and paintings. The range of elements she used on this occasion was very narrow. The main tool was her body, which she juxtaposed/confronted with individual, selected objects: grains, earth, plants, feathers, cotton, wool or pins.
