PDF - Curators` Network

Circle, acrylic and pigment on canvas, polyptych, 160 cm x 640 cm, 2012/2013
Wozownia Art Gallery, Toruń, February-March 2013, photo: Kazimierz Napiórkowski
Body Stories is a series of visual-textual stories
concerning the body – its sensuality, emotionality,
limitations and language.
Works presented at the exhibition at Wozownia
Gallery took the form of installations of drawings
and paintings with red as the dominating colour.
Its temperature became my guide in formulating
the expression of the body that cannot be stated
through language. Body Stories is yet another
of my struggles with discursive language from
which the language of body separates.
The geometry of the body clashes here with
Euclidean geometry, and the contemporary
lingua franca with my mother tongue.
During the work on Body Stories I considered
questions relating to the possibilities of language,
its limits, its exhaustion, as well as the identification
with it. Which spheres of my life can language
express in words? Which remain unnamed?
Which names remain inadequate in relation
to my feelings about them? Which states, events,
and emotions can language follow? Which manage
to evade it, and which are being skipped by
it when it cannot define them and find their
equivalents in the signs of writing?
Body Stories is a confrontation of an important part
of my identity that lies in language with its nonlinguistic side – feelings and intuition. The works are
my statements on the language-dependent experience
of the world and its processes understood commonly
in given linguistic categories and closed in linguistic
frames. I question language and try to escape from
the frames, transfer myself to the sphere beyond,
and extend myself through this non-linguistic context.
Małgorzata Dawidek Gryglicka
2012
Body Stories
Wozownia Art Gallery,
Toruń, February-March 2013
Circle, acrylic and pigment on canvas, polyptych, 160 cm x 640 cm, 2012/2013
Photo: Krzysztof Wiktor
Circle, acrylic and pigment on canvas, polyptych, 160 cm x 640 cm, fragment of the piece No. 7, 2012/2013
Photo: Krzysztof Wiktor
Circle, acrylic and pigment on canvas, polyptych, 160 cm x 640 cm, fragment of the piece No. 5, 2012/2013
Photo: Krzysztof Wiktor
A Diary of the Senses, pentaptych, part I [hearing], part II [smell], part III [sight], part IV [touch], part V [taste]
textual drawing, transparent foil, modelling foam, cabinet, 145 cm x 55 cm, 2012/2013
Wozownia Art Gallery, Toruń, photo: Kazimierz Napiórkowski
A Diary of the Senses, pentaptych, part I [hearing], part II [smell], part III [sight], part IV [touch], part V [taste]
textual drawing, transparent foil, modelling foam, cabinet, 145 cm x 55 cm, 2012/2013
Wozownia Art Gallery, Toruń, photo: Kazimierz Napiórkowski
A Diary of the Senses, pentaptych, part I [hearing], part II [smell], part III [sight], part IV [touch], part V [taste]
textual drawing, transparent foil, modelling foam, cabinet, 145 cm x 55 cm, 2012/2013
Wozownia Art Gallery, Toruń, photo: Kazimierz Napiórkowski
A Diary of the Senses, pentaptych, part III [sight]
textual drawing, transparent foil, modelling foam, cabinet, 145 cm x 55 cm, 2012/2013
photo: Krzysztof Wiktor
Untitled [THE WARMTH OF THE BODY], painting installation, 245 cm x 1560 cm, x 600 cm
Wozownia Art Gallery, Toruń, photo: Kazimierz Napiórkowski
Untitled [THE WARMTH OF THE BODY], painting installation, 245 cm x 1560 cm, x 600 cm
Wozownia Art Gallery, Toruń, photo: Kazimierz Napiórkowski
accidental. Intense and rich in diverse symbolic
meanings, the colour would perhaps jar with other
Now I’m touching in a different way
shades or colours in subsequent representations.
The one clear theme running through Małgorzata
Red is primarily associated with all forms of
Dawidek
vitality. It is also associated with the body,
Gryglicka’s
works
displayed
at
the
“Opowieści ciała” [“Body Stories”] exhibition at the
enthusiasm,
Wozownia Gallery in Toruń is the relationship
manliness, understood as courage. Nevertheless,
between
red is also known to have pejorative symbolic
the
artist
and
her
own
corporality.
happiness,
love,
strength
and…
or
connotations. It is first and foremost the colour of
reproduced in any way at the exposition, not even in
blood. However, when the colour refers to blood
the
a
circulating through the body, it symbolises the
photographic record. The means of expression the
strength of life. Once blood is outside of the body,
artist relies on in her narrative on corporeality are
whether it is blood flowing from a wound or
highly sophisticated, limited to specific colours,
menstrual blood, the same red will symbolise
shapes
the
impurity, weakness or disease. Artists associated
corporeality in her works concerns very basic,
with the feminist art movement (including Judy
universal ontological experiences. On the other
Chicago, Tracey Emin, Pipilotti Rist) frequently
hand, it is an intimate attempt to deal with the
drew on this well-known interpretation, which
imperfections of one’s own body and its female
usually involved radical
sensuality. This is Dawidek Gryglicka’s most frank
corporality. Yet one will find no trace of radical
tale devoted to the intimate experiencing of one's
provocation
characteristic
own corporality to date.
feminism
Małgorzata
Her
subsequent
works. Her tale of corporality is rather like a diary
representations – intense “blood” red – is far from
entry, recording individual experiences and the
Interestingly,
form
use
of
and
of
her
a
body
pictorial
words.
only
is
On
one
not
depicted
representation
the
colour
one
in
hand,
or
in
references
of
Dawidek
to female
second-wave
Gryglicka’s
sensual experiencing of oneself. Through the
recurrent use of red in her works, the artist
artist’s exhibition. The choice of an English word is
discreetly highlights the specificity of the material
not accidental, as it can be used as both a noun
on which she works.
(“circle”) and a verb (“to circle”). Dawidek Gryglicka
There is no fighting for a change, revolutionary
traces red circles by hand on eight canvases. When
declarations or demanding attitudes in her art; only
they are juxtaposed with one another, some of the
reflection
lines cross, connect with one another or form
on
one’s
condition,
an
attempt
to
understand oneself and one’s sensitivity, the coming
semicircles. The artist fills the individual interiors
to terms with the fragility and fallibility of one’s
with sentences, which are a shade lighter. “Where is
body.
the beginning of my body?” – she starts with a
In
an
interview
with
Jaromir
Jedliński,
Gryglicka mentioned that her art was “(…) a struggle
rhetorical question, and then adds: “Where do I
for life, not a struggle with life.” 1 These words hold
start?”. The monologue unfolds based on her dual
the key to a proper understanding of her intentions.
identity as a person and a body, which is her equal.
The artist, who is no stranger to disease, clearly
In this way, she creates a vision of a unique
understands her body and weighs her words when
relationship based on the dominance and submission
talking about it. She reads the signals sent by the
of the “self” – as a conscious person – and the body,
body and relies on her intuition to find out about her
which appears to be a separate being, though one
condition.
immanent with respect to the “self.” Life and death,
A series of paintings entitled “Circle” opens the
which on the surface appear to be a choice of the
“self” or the body, can subjugate both. These words
1
“Because I’m of a slight build, and creating is a kind of work that
requires constant alertness and high energy input, as any creative
activity does, it poses some sort of a danger to me, too. A danger to
which I expose myself in order to simultaneously protect myself.
Hence my conviction that art is a struggle for life, not a struggle with
life. It is a boost that exposes one to danger and at the same time
allows one to survive.” Jaromir Jedliński’s interview with
Małgorzata Dawidek Gryglicka, exhibition catalogue for the Errata
exhibition, publ. Muzalewska Gallery, Poznań 2011, p. 19.
capture the artist’s struggle with her body. By
elevating the body to the role of an equal entity, she
highlights the impossibility of controlling it fully.
Nevertheless, she does not depict it merely as a
mindless ruler undermining her will. Their
relationship, while full of inner tension, is based on
mutual acceptance. Reflections captured in the form
Individual fragments of the descriptions closely
of a visual poem blend together with the geometric
overlap each other in such a way that by reading
form, becoming complete.
texts from the five fragments at the same time, one
conjures up quite an accurate phenomenological
Delicate drawings on foil placed on a white
picture of each activity carried out on that day.
background in the series “A Diary of the Senses” are
Nevertheless, one is not dealing merely with a dry,
barely visible to the spectator, enclosed in long
chronicle-like description. In order to convey the
display cases. They take the shape of long,
general impression, the artist relies on comparisons
handwritten descriptions of Dawidek Gryglicka’s
and associations evoked by images, smells, tastes,
sensual experiences over the course of a day. Here
sounds and objects she touches: “Now, I feel a
is what the artist herself has to say about them: “In
smarting beneath the eyelid and, now, a crystal of
this work I described all the stimuli I responded to
salt. Now, I touch the eyelids with my fingers and,
during a chosen day. The description is always from
now, I press lightly and rub. Now, I feel the contour
the point of view of one of the five senses – hearing,
of the face beneath the fingers. And, now, the
sight, taste, touch and smell. The text takes the
weight of the eyelids. Now, the flutter of a bird's
form of prose poetry. It is written in the first person
wings in the cage of my chest. Now, my touch is
singular, present tense. (…) Nearly every sentence in
veiled. Now, I touch differently”. Such a form of
the text (except for descriptive sentences, which are
expression allows the spectator to vividly experience
very rare) contains the adverb of time ‘now.’” 2As he
individual representations, they are almost palpable.
or she reads about the subsequent sensations,
With the artist’s “self” manifesting itself again,
linked with individual senses, the spectator conjures
expressed through the first person narration, we feel
up situations which the artist found herself in.
that we are being let in on some secret of the world
of her senses. What is more, we can learn this secret
“here and now”, which also influences the way we
2
An e-mail from Małgorzata Dawidek Gryglicka of 10 January
2013.
experience the text. Such a monologue generates
ambivalence in the spectator, who is both curious
associations, show a unique wish to preserve in
and fascinated by the wide variety of associations,
herself all the images, sounds, tastes and smells that
and somewhat embarrassed as a result of
she experiences through her senses.
encroaching on somebody else’s intimate world. The
A large-format installation, a long and narrow room
concept of the abject, coined by Julia Kristeva, which
illuminated
refers to both repulsion of and fascination with a
inscription “THE WARMTH OF THE BODY”, also red,
discarded object, would probably come closest to
on the longer wall captures the essence of the
3
with
red
light,
with
15-metre
these feelings. The almost erotic monologue
exhibition at the Wozownia Gallery. This “warmth of
intrigues and generates the need to distance oneself
the body” fills the entire space. Yet the red light
in equal measure. In the interview with Jaromir
bathing the room leaves one with a feeling not so
Jedliński mentioned above, the artist herself says:
much of warmth as danger. The body seems to be
“And so, yes, apart from the fact that I almost
burning up with fever, leaving one too weak to
continuously narrate things in my head and even my
breathe rhythmically and slowly. In delirium, the
dreams feature a narrator at times, the uttered
only image conjured up is that of the body, which
4
words have colours. This sounds mad.” Dawidek
will become the focus of attention.
Gryglicka’s unique ability to capture phenomena in
the form of synthetic experiences is evident also in
this work. At the same time, her constant need to
note down her reflections in the form of “written”
images, the attempt to convey them through
3
a
J. Kristeva, Powers Of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, Kraków
2007.
4
Jaromir Jedliński interview with Małgorzata Dawidek Gryglicka,
exhibition catalogue for Errata exhibition, publ. Muzalewska Gallery,
Poznań 2011, p. 20.
Piotr Stasiowski, 22 January 2013
Untitled [THE WARMTH OF THE BODY], painting installation, 245 cm x 1560 cm, x 600 cm
Wozownia Art Gallery, Toruń, photo: Kazimierz Napiórkowski