Agnieszka Brzesanska
dal 25/3/2010 al 7/5/2010
Segnalato da
25/3/2010
Agnieszka Brzesanska
Daad Galerie, Berlin
In her chromatic surface paintings organic and morphological forms emerge in which a modernist vocabulary is occasionally evoked. But they remain ephemeral, unfinished, and process driven: what they represent often becomes evident only through repetition and variation. In her new video works due to debut under the title "Playlist", Brzezanska deals with the spiritual in the form of contemporary esoterics.
Agnieszka Brzeżańska is mainly known for being a painter. Yet in her work she plays with a
choreographic and rhythmic clarity of gestures that employ a myriad of mediums between which she
effortlessly jumps and gladly intermingles. In her chromatic surface paintings organic and morphological
forms emerge in which a modernist vocabulary is occasionally evoked. But they remain ephemeral,
unfinished, and process driven: what they represent often becomes evident only through repetition and
variation.
Brzeżańska’s work also demonstrates a preference for mirrors and bodily self-reflections and is therein
reminiscent of the US-American experimental filmmaker Maya Deren, whose most famous films could be
considered "camera choreographies," i.e., movement and rhythm in images. Like Deren, Brzeżańska’s art
makes present the tension between the spiritual and the ethnographic. A text-quotation used in one of
Brzeżańska’s photos states: "When the anthropologist arrives, the gods depart."
In her new video works due to debut at the daadgalerie under the title "Playlist", Brzeżańska deals with the
spiritual in the form of contemporary esoterics. "Playlist" shows an international selection of videos
downloaded from YouTube, which are projected in three different series (playlists) on three projections in
the main room of the daadgalerie. The various clips are all allocated to contemporary esoteric forms or to
what was referred to in the 1980s as "New Age." Among them are philosophical or scientific statements,
mediation films, instructions for spiritual techniques of furthering consciousness and prophecies of a new
era. The mainly abstract vocabulary of forms, the music and voiceovers of the clips are foremost of interest
to Brzeżańska on the formal aesthetic level. Her selection of esoteric YouTube clips demonstrates her
quasi-ethnographic interest in the therein propagated practices and Weltanschauungen that form a
collective, unfiltered, atemporal, and, in this case, spiritual intelligence, "Everything from brilliant insight to
scurrilous rumor" (Bruce Sterling), which is significant in the age of Internet culture.
Agnieszka Brzeżańska was born in 1972 in Gdańsk, Poland. In 2008/09, she was a guest of the Berliner
Künstlerprogramm/ DAAD. Following the solo exhibition "Playlist" in the daadgalerie in April will be a solo
show called "Galactic Resonance" at Hotel, London, and a more comprehensive solo exhibition called
"Cosmic Equation" will take place at the Kunsthaus Baselland in Basel in May 2010. In addition to
exhibitions at the Center for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle and the Zachęta National Art Gallery in
Warsaw (2006), at Karma International, Zurich, and in the Galerie Kamm, Berlin, Brzeżańska took part in
numerous international group shows, such as "Open Space Living Art TLV," the International Biennial for
Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv (2008), and the Forum Expanded of the Berlinale film festival (2008), the Liste
at Art Basel (2007), and "Take One" at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas (2006).
The monograph L’artiste, le modèle, et la peinture by Agnieszka Brzeżańska will be published on the
occasion of the exhibition (co-published by the artist, Sternberg Press, and the Berliner
Künstlerprogramm/DAAD).
Image: Flag of Earth
For further information:
artpress – Ute Weingarten Tel: +49 (0)30 2196 1843 artpress@uteweingarten.de
Opening: Friday, 26 March, 7-9pm
daadgalerie
Zimmerstr. 90/ 91
10117 Berlin
Mon – Sat 11am – 6pm