A trace is an imprint of something that was. It is a sign left by another, a stranger, or oneself. It is a scratch or an afterimage. Some events leave a trace in the memory; others we forget. By following traces, we can track down the thing itself. Lacking a map, yet desiring to set out on a journey, we collect traces that will lead us to the desired place. Very often, it turns out that the place we strove for is something entirely different from our imagination of it, or exactly the same place we have already been. Often we find the goal not where we were searching for it. We always walk along traces. Others were here before us and left us clues: photos, descriptions, memories, signs, buildings, planted trees, rubbish. Some traces we like and want to live with; others we would rather erase. We want to blow up monuments of heroes that are not our own. Finally, we want to leave our own imprints and have someone follow them. Or we want to leave no traces, to mark nothing, yet we leave them nonetheless. Our traces, like the traces of others, may please us or not.
Traces (Ślady) at o/b/c/y is a meeting of two artists: ML Poznanski and Bartosz Wajer.
ML creates paintings, dolls, sculptures, and clothes. They paint on canvases sewn together from scraps of fabric; the seams are visible. The motifs in Poznanski’s paintings are figurative yet unrealistic. They are metaphors—encounters of upscaled figures in a symbolic framework. Little people and faces. Doing something, peeking at the doing, or struggling. In one of ML’s paintings, a tongue appears—vast and limp like a carcass. The tongue is heavy; it is dragged by a boy. The tongue causes trouble. A head cuts into the giant tongue, seemingly mocking the boy's efforts. Opposite the tongue, an imp-like figure with a long nose blocks the way. A bittersweet chuckle flows from my tongue as I look at this painting by ML. A trace on the tongue is a taste.
Bartosz Wajer creates photography, paintings, and drawings. He does not photograph reality. He re-photographs images after subjecting them to various interventions. He punches holes in old slides, projects images of other faces onto his own, integrates figures he has created into found interior photographs, or draws similar visions. Wajer has created several fictional identities online (operating on Instagram), which he treats as a space for sharing his diverse creative work (@chicco_galery, @furrows, @from_eye_to_bone, @eshu_voss, @saturday_morning_selfie, @more_than_just_plumbers, @pancakes_universe…). Wajer’s creative tactic is one of multiple masking and camouflage. One must look at his images for a long time before the layered meanings can be deciphered. I look at a portrait, a photo of a face. Whose photograph is it, though? After all, this photo does not depict the face of an existing person. It is a hybrid, a mish-mash, the traces of many glued into one. Nothing is what it seemingly looks like. Appearance loses the trail and deceives.
The creative methods chosen by both artists seem to be placed at opposite poles. ML sews, joins, compiles. Bartosz punches holes, tears, overlays.
During the opening, Sonia Roszczuk will perform in a garment by ML Poznanski. Sonia's interaction with the audience will be a performance at the intersection of a created character, costume, and the presence of those participating in the meeting.
The exhibition will undergo transformations throughout its duration. The works will migrate, change their places, move closer to each other and further away. They will find a context only to immediately abandon it and dress in another. We will find nothing new here—only something slightly shifted, and therefore different. The different may turn out to be the same.
Artists:
ML Poznanski, Bartosz Wajer, Sonia Roszczuk
Curators:
Anna-Maria Karczmarska, Mikołaj Małek
