Showcasing work spanning 2007-2023, this exhibition ‘You Are Mine’ serves as both a retrospective of the work that brought Jakub Julian Ziółkowski international recognition over the last couple of decades as well as work created specifically for this exhibition at MOCAK Museum of Contemporary Art in Kraków over the last three years. Described by the exhibition curator Delfina Jałowik as a ‘philosophical reflection,’ Ziółkowski’s more recent work deals with ongoing themes of his studio practice such as mysticism and fascination through multiple creative mediums – and a myriad of meaning-making possibilities within them.
During a visit to the exhibition with curator Delfina Jałowik, I had the opportunity to learn more about the artist’s work and process as well as the curatorial approach in the context of this major solo exhibition of Ziołkowski.
Jałowik herself proposed the idea to have an exhibition of Ziółkowski’s work at MOCAK approximately three to four years ago, noting that his innovative work had primarily been shown to an international audience, which has subsequently become much more aware of his captivating work than his local audience in Poland. Having worked together previously on another exhibition a few years prior, Jałowik was familiar with his work from previous collaborations and wanted to facilitate a ‘new starting point’ for Ziołkowski’s work to be viewed and experienced in Kraków. During the opening of the exhibition, she detailed how moving the experience was to see the local Krakowian audience’s response to the exhibition during the opening March 30th. As Jałowik described it, attendees were amazed and moved by the work, relishing the opportunity to reside in a space of wonder and unknown – and not necessarily needing to understand everything. Having studied at the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, this exhibition provides a much anticipated opportunity for the local community to be reintroduced to Ziółkowski on a significant scale. Jałowik describes her role in this process as bridging the gap between the critical reception Ziołkowski’s work has received over the years and the audience.
Ziółkowski’s work poses an exciting challenge to viewers. Crossing media, scale, style, time, and points of inspiration, there is no direct or simple linear approach one can take to understand his work. And yet, for all these reasons and then some, Ziółkowski’s work manages to hold a universality in its complex uniqueness that captivates audiences by creating his own world – worlds within worlds – folded within each of his pieces. Of cosmos-like compositions, dreamily moving throughout space and time, giving the viewer references to imagery on both a macro and micro-level of nature and the human experience.
As Jałowik commented during our discussion, ‘Now as an evolved artist, following many years of work and experience, of having worked in Europe and abroad, he trusts himself and doesn’t worry about what critics think.’ As such, he takes exciting risks and pushes the boundaries of how his work materializes and manifests in space as well as the fact that his artistic process is constantly evolving. For Ziółkowski, ‘The process of creation is more important than the output.’ Jałowik went on to describe that his multi-sensory approach in this exhibition, which includes enveloping the viewer into the complex, inter-layered universes of each piece and inviting the viewer on an elaborate journey through alternative multidimensional and alternative worlds – demonstrated especially in pieces such as ‘Nest’ (2021) and ‘Dream of Life’ (2022).
Art Is a State of Internal Traveling In Conversation with Jakub Julian Ziółkowski
Jakub Julian Ziółkowski’s intricate paintings and painting-based installations embody his personal microcosm of unsettling visions. They overflow with grotesque characters, hybrid landscapes and enigmatic events.
In the following conversation Jakub Julian Ziółkowski shares thoughts on his own artistic practice and the relationship with the art world.
His artistic strategy in many ways focuses on the re-negotiation and re-interpretation of visual sensory culture – in some cases perhaps through overstimulation and globalization of culture – and to have references and symbols that teeter on the line of familiarity and the unknown. In the example of the ‘Dream of Life,’ which provides its audience with a isolated environment to reside in ambiguity, dissonance, and a sense of being overwhelmed within the expansive audio/visual work, the environment evolves with time spent into a sense of repetition, serenity and contemplation. And in this particular example and others, Ziółkowski commences and finishes new work with the music and sound that he created himself, from instruments such as drums which he plays himself and then listens to as he works. Additionally, in much of his work, which enmeshes the human form and abstracted landscapes with religious, cultural, and political symbols, Ziółkowski leaves his viewers with an array of responses ranging from curiosity, uncertainty, wonder, and having been transported between the past, present, and future all at once.
Self-describing his own work as ‘anthropological art,’ Ziołkowski pulls from many different areas of inspiration across painting, sculpture, mixed media pieces and installations and sound. Having worked and traveled to the US, Asia, and Europe, Ziółkowski’s work undoubtedly carries with it a myriad of influences, motifs, and re-interpretations of various cultural, spiritual and religious references all entangled and enmeshed within the artist’s multilayered compositional universes. Ranging from surrealism to abstraction, two-dimensional and three-dimensional and in many cases, a hybrid of all the above, Ziółkowski rarely repeats himself twice and is constantly reinventing his approach. However, he purposefully does not detail specific references and notions within his work, rather challenging the viewer to meditate and explore his work and derive meaning on their own terms and from their own interpretations. Ziółkowski’s philosophical and anthropological approach often serves as a distinct reminder of our most fundamental human and natural instincts, forms, and relationships through an introspective lens. Whether it is blurring the line between the mind and body, of basic human functions and our collective search for spirituality and meaning as well as suggestions of antiquity and of contemporarily, Ziółkowski always keeps the viewer guessing and in awe.
Jałowik also shared more about the collaborative process she had with Ziółkowski over the last couple years as they prepared the exhibition and the unique process and development of the exhibition. She described the special experience of working with Ziółkowski and the challenge of trusting the artist’s process as particularly in this case, he was making new work specifically to show as part of his exhibition at MOCAK. Additionally, Jałowik explained the distinctive approach they took as a team, providing lots of space and time for experimentation and for allowing for the creative process to constantly evolve and impact the curatorial decision making process.
And with all that being said, Jałowik also shared how she felt it was important to show Ziółkowski’s early work with the new work, with the initial plan to show them as distinct and separate sections. However, as the new work developed to show the natural evolution of the artist’s process, as Jałowik noted, it became clear that the incorporation of new and old work throughout the exhibition space was a more fitting direction for showcasing Ziółkowski’s body of work. With many overlapping themes and symbols, the exhibition follows a similar path to Ziółkowski’s own artistic experimental process of blending time and space through introducing a new language of work in dialogue with his older pieces. Jałowik went on to describe the joy and honor it is to be part of the creative process, with an artist like Ziółkowski, noting that for him ‘the starting point for the work is the work itself.’ She found it to be especially important to give space for the artist to freely brainstorm, contemplate all possibilities without adding any restrictions or limitations – simply allowing for the consideration of any and all outcomes as the artist does not begin work with a specific end in mind.
Our innate need as human beings to try to create order in chaos is a natural part of what it means to be part of the collective human experience and for which Ziółkowski speaks to with tremendous nuance and unapologetic boldness. As Jałowik concluded, through the way in which Ziółkowski approaches his work, he transcends the trends of his time to revisit our most basic existential questions which have plagued us for as long as humanity has been in existence. Through all 170 displayed works, he invites us to contemplate with him the meaning of life, our place and purpose in it, and to embrace the expansive unknown with perhaps more questions than answers.
Jakub Julian Ziółkowski
MOCAK Museum of Contemporary Art in Kraków
30.03.2023 – 24.09.2023
curator: Delfina Jałowik
