Der Schwindel means vertigo, dizziness, or a scam. It is also the title of the exhibition inaugurating the activities of the Obcy język gallery in Szczecin. Originally, Obcy (Stranger/Foreign) operated as an artist-run-space between 2021 and 2023 in a Warsaw apartment at Marszałkowska 18/28. Obcy was a room where people and things met from time to time. Sometimes we hosted a concert, sometimes a performance, sometimes an exhibition. The shows were always group efforts, because the meeting of people and objects was what mattered most. After moving to Szczecin, Obcy became Obcy język (Foreign Language). It is no longer a gallery in an apartment, but a resident of a transitional space. It has settled in one of the rooms of the former Selsin office building. It has a beautiful view from the window and the company of TRAFO, but it has perched here only for a moment. Obcy became Obcy język due to the transfer to Szczecin—just as Polish is a "foreign language" in the former German territories. Just as German belongs to those whom the proto-Poles called "the mute" (niemi – hence Niemcy), because their speech was incomprehensible to the proto-Poles.
We titled the first exhibition in Obcy język in German: Der Schwindel. Yet, it is a word perfectly known to Poles, absorbed into the Polish language and tamed as the familiar szwindel. We planned this exhibition as a meeting of sculptural forms, installations, and video works. We thought of revisiting several old pieces alongside new ones created in reference to the form-giving political and social events of the late 1990s and early 2000s. We recall the moment of Poland's systemic transformation, the time of entering European Union structures, and the social anxieties of that era: the sense of being "unfinished" or "out of place"; the fear of the thief and the fear of being a fraud. Poland, like a poor relative, hobbled into Europe, but its roads were riddled with potholes, the products in shops were poor, and Polish artists worried whether the art they proposed to the West would be good and interesting enough for Westerners. Forms that are incomplete, underdone, ill-born, destined for failure. The architecture in which Obcy język temporarily resides is also a place of transition. A 1970s office building, a post-space, repeatedly remodeled, patched up, changing its function in anticipation of an imminent major redevelopment. This is an exhibition about transition, metamorphosis, and transformation—or about an attempt to find a new language for the ongoing social, systemic, and personal changes. About becoming and falling short.
Artists:
Azorro (Oskar Dawicki, Igor Krenz, Wojciech Niedzielko, Łukasz Skąpski), Everything has been done before 2, video, 2003, 25’02’’
Jan Baszak, Rabbit, 2019, sculpture: wood, foam, black socks, epoxy eyes, 23x20x11 cm
Karolina Breguła, Video Camera, 2007, video, 23’26’’
Wanda Czełkowska, Head, 1971-2013, sculpture: bronze
Łukasz Jastrubczak, Satellite Fear, 2025, installation: antenna, tape recorder, window frame
Anna Maria Karczmarska, Moszna, 2013, 16 mm —> mp4, 8’31’’
Mikołaj Małek, Peeping Tom, 2013, sculpture: epoxy resin, steel rod
