APNEA

Exhibition runs until March 23, 2014

In a still film frame, a paper stone is suddenly carried away by the river current, styrofoam snow falls along the high mountain. A crumpled sheet of photo paper imitates a snow-clad peak, stealing a part of the alpine landscape. Through the use of objects made with raw materials, Dorota Buczkowska disturbs the eternal order in nature and its perpetual, everlasting rhythm. The artist plays a multilayered game of illusions and assumptions. The viewer fails to recognize what is shown and what is hidden. Paper pretends to be stone, styrofoam transforms into snow, plastic resembles rock. On the one hand, Dorota Buczkowska interferes with nature, on the other one she leaves her works exposed to the natural processes of change. Such exposure to atmospheric conditions – water, wind, rain or fog – blurs the thin line between art and nature. Time becomes one of the vital aspects of the art. In the final stage, the process of very slow changes makes it impossible to distinguish the artificial and false from what we consider real.

In the drawings, video, photographs and photo paper installation featured in the Apnea exhibition, Dorota Buczkowska and Przemek Dzienis explore the notion of illusion, they analyze the state of being under an illusion and examine the thin line between what is real and unreal. The viewer fails to recognize whether the drawings feature stones or paper. Is the fog filling the screen with white a natural process or has it been artificially generated? Does anyone remotely control the stone circling around in the river? (text: Agata Ubysz)

In 2010 Dorota Buczkowska was awarded a three-month residency in ECAV (Ecole Cantonale d’Art du Valais) in Sierre, Valais, Switzerland. The residency, sponsored by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, resulted in Apnea, a series consisting of different mediums and techniques. Dorota Buczkowska invited Przemek Dzienis to collaborate on the project. They created a series of photographs featuring Buczkowska’s sculptures. The objects, placed in the setting typical of Przemek Dzienis’ photography, gained a new meaning.

Dorota Buczkowska (born 1971). Graduated from the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts (Sculpture Department). She attended Centre National des Arts Plastiques Villa Arson in Nice (France) and Warsaw University (Gender Studies). Dorota Buczkowska is an interdisciplinary artist working in different media: painting, drawing, installation and video. Her works have been featured, among others, in numerous solo exhibitions organized by Polnisches Institut Düsseldorf, Skulpturenmuseum in Marl, Centre for Contemporary Arts in Warsaw, BWA. They are held in a number of private and public collections, including ING Polish Art Foundation, PKO S.A., Sculpture Museum in Marl, MoBy Museum in Tel-Aviv. Dorota Buczkowska lives and works in Warsaw.

Przemek Dzienis (b. 1984). Graduated from the National Film School in Lodz. He works mainly with portraiture and analyses the relation between the man and everyday items. Przemek Dzienis has also experimented with the notion of multiplication, with figures and objects and their activity in space. His photographs have been shown at solo exhibitions in Budapest, Warsaw, Cracow, Lodz and Poznan. His artistic collaboration with Dorota Buczkowska resulted in a photographic series exploring the relation between sculptural installations and nature. Przemek Dzienis lives and works in Warsaw.

Agata Ubysz. Writer on contemporary photography, journalist and curator. She graduated from Art History at the University of Warsaw. In 2010-2012, she worked at the Musée de l’Elysée, a renowned museum of photography in Lausanne, Switzerland. Since 2013, she has chaired the Lookout Foundation for the Development of Photography.

The exhibition APNEA. Dorota Buczkowska. Featuring Przemek Dzienis has been organized in collaboration with the Lookout Foundation for the Development of Photography.

The Lookout Foundation for the Development of Photography was set up in 2013. Its objectives include initiating and conducting activities for the development and promotion of culture and visual arts, particularly photography and multimedia projects in Poland and abroad.