In the framework of an exchange project with the PROFILE Foundation in Warsaw, annex14 is delighted to be presenting two generations of Polish artists. Jarosław Kozłowski (*1945) is regarded as one of the leading concept artists, whose philosophically and linguistically trained eye encounters the transparency of word and language with great scepticism. He is known as someone who loves paradox, and who also likes to play with perception. Natalia Brandt (*1983) trains her eye on social, artistic and cultural issues relevant to her own generation.
Jarosław Kozłowski has been developing an undogmatic and independent work of great rigour since the 1960s. In 1971, with NET, he initiated an “artistic network” that embraced the whole art world of the time. He was also involved in the Fluxus movement. It was then that he produced his numerous artist’s books, series of drawings and photographs, all of which engaged with the concept of art, its relationship with reality, with everyday life and with ideology and propaganda. For some time now Kozłowski has also been working on different long-term projects, two of which will be presented in the exhibition: Recycled News (2007-2014) and a work from the series of Nomadic Rooms each made with materials gathered locally. In terms of material and theme, the so-called Swiss Version – commonplace items of furniture interlocked and piled up into a fragile tower-like construct which contains various references – is located in a multi-layered, intermediate place. Kozłowski calls this neither-nor “Third Circle”, meaning a phenomenon that is not myth, i.e., not identical with either art or reality. Its presence evokes instability, a feeling of transition and temporary existence that also opens up collective and individual spaces of perception and memory. Recycled News (2007-2014) consists of hundreds of sheets of newspaper from all over the world that are painted over with watercolour. Irrespective of their origins or political message, the sheets are all framed the same way and thus subjected to an aesthetic marked by rhythm and repetition. The gesture of overpainting not only questions the credibility of the messages conveyed, it also points to the media’s aestheticization of content. The mass media also draw attention due to their world-wide information, and their aspiration to represent experiences in and of the world.
The artist Natalia Brandt uses the most varied of media: drawing, painting, photography, spatial and acoustic installation, video projection and artist’s books. Her projects examine representational models of power and of political and cultural identity. She also focuses on the modernist tradition and its reinterpretation and topicality for contemporary art. Her intense preoccupation with Kurt Schwitters is part of this and has given rise, for example, to her Conversations with Kurt Schwitters, 2010, as well as to the series of drawings on show here in the exhibition called Merz, 2012-2014. Starting with details, she uses a pencil to draw a kind of narrative and commentary to Schwitters’ conceptual approaches, which she thus updates for the present in a very personal way.
