︎

DOMESTIC ANIMALS

Bunkier Sztuki, Kraków, PL
14.04.2018–24.06.2018


“Domestic Animals” presents the works of Krakow artists of the younger generation, whose common denominator is the personal nature of their work. The exhibition is an attempt to diagnose the situation of contemporary artists, who in their artistic activities focus on their experiences and thoughts, as well as their immediate environment. Their works reflect a longing for the body, materiality, rooting in real space. The artists presented in the exhibition are selected participants of the first two editions of the SEJSMOGRAF project, held at the Bunkier Sztuki Gallery in 2016 and 2017.

The pets of the title are opposites of Aristotle's zoon politikon - political animals. The idiosyncratic nature of the artists' work means that they do not engage in public life, rejecting the utilitarian function of art. Seemingly, they seem to go against what is logical and efficient in modern times, and their actions are unnecessary and meaningless. Meanwhile, they, reluctant to build utopias, focus primarily on exploring their everyday life. Away from reality, they measure themselves against the constant need to create, constantly creating new "unnecessary entities" - products of a particular sensibility and desire for materiality. They are flâneurs of the winding alleys of their own minds. They travel to the distant, non-existent places of the worlds they have invented, studying them in depth with the precision of cartographers, geographers, naturalists, astronomers. They retreat into the privacy of their studios, and there, in the face of an excess of technology, stimuli and expectations, realize ideas from their imagination and dreams. On the one hand, they long for a different, new world, and on the other, they protect themselves from the one outside the window.

The works presented as part of the exhibition form a story of privacy and personal microcosms of the young artists. The works function as diaries documenting the artists' activities in the real and virtual worlds. They touch on intimate subjects, raising questions about emotions and ties connecting with other people or the environment. Some of the works strongly affect the senses, evoking feelings of pleasure or a state of tension. Others explore the question of physical presence in space. For these individual stories, the gallery space functions as a safe research laboratory that allows the artists to nurture passions, make dreams real, contemplate gestures. For viewers, it simultaneously creates a set of exercises for the imagination, encouraging changes in thinking and perception

Curator:
Marta Lisok

Artists:
Michalina Bigaj, Justyna Gryglewicz, Kornel Janczy, Martyna Kielesińska, Adrian Kolerski, Magdalena Lazar, Justyna Mędrala, Anna Pichura, Filip Rybkowski, Kolektyw Smutna buźka – Karolina Jarzębak i Aleksandra Nowakowska, Michał Sroka, Eliasz Styrna