QUEST FOR FIRE

Winter came. Cold aesthetic wind blew and chilled part of the art community to the bone. After all, formalism is sometimes very boring, especially that somewhere beneath the goosebumps hides the need for actions that go beyond the graceful abstract compositions, touching the flame hidden under the surface of solidified lava. We need an impulse!

This year's awards proposed by the jury of the Grey House Foundation include five artists who would feel more at home with mud, forest and neotribal masks than with rough surfaces of glaciers and smooth non-figurative canvases.

Each of the attitudes presented in the exhibition is a strategy for engaging with such intensity both the subject and the language of forms describing it. In the frigid atmosphere of competition, they will have to compete for superiority.

But let us go back to the film of 1981, from was the title of the exhibition was taken. Rather than about prehistory the exaggerated image of the era of saber-toothed tigers and ginger cannibals, talks about how we used to imagine the dawn of humanity 35 years ago - grimy cavemen bathed in blood and mud, fighting with nature over final things.

In the play by the five artists participating in the exhibition, one can find a clear similarity, involving moving one’s actions outside the secure area of ​​art. Many of these escapades choose nature as their objective; seemingly tame and harmless, it becomes the backdrop for performance and sculpting activities. Justyna Orłowska presents a root as the key element of her performance based on the pagan first haircut ritual. Adam Laska’s objects present an intellectual game – a play of imitation – where the natural becomes artificial and the artificial acquires an organic character. In the case of Krzysztof Maniak’s work we are dealing with meditative video-haikus, the author’s merging in to the serene forest environment. The works of Norbert Delman and Przemek Branas are objects that entail disturbing activities and functions: a huge lump of stearin resulting from long-term performance and a mask, which is best used in a protesting crowd.

The battle waged in this competition is not absolute. It is not without significance, however, that the participating authors in their actions refer to forces and phenomena beyond the categories of art. After all, during a time of cold formalism, we need an impulse, which would flash our minds and bear the seeds of art far beyond its borders!

Curator: Piotr Sikora

NORBERT DELMAN

b. 1989

A graduate of Miroslaw Balka’s studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. He also studied Fine Arts at the University College Falmouth. In his work he involves the video medium, creates installations, often complementing them with a substantial performance. Using a very distinctive visual language and strong colors, he describes the tensions and anxieties present in the modern information society. His works were shown e.g. in the CCA Ujazdowski Castle and MODEM in Debrecen. He lives and works in Warsaw.

PRZEMYSŁAW BRANAS

b. 1987

Sophomore at the Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Studies of the University of Arts in Poznan. For several months he has been working in in his family home in Jaroslaw, Subcarpathia. Due to its location, multiculturalism, its Eastern character, and purely human savagery, the area became his inspiration, rich in themes, images and mythologies. His observation and use of these elements have become more apparent when he began to "live between" Krakow and Poznan - the two cities that raise him academically and artistically. His works were shown e.g. at the CCA Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw and the Baltic Gallery of Contemporary Art.

JUSTYNA ORŁOWSKA

b. 1988

In 2014 she graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdansk, pursuing a diploma in Grzegorz Klaman’s and Dorota Nieznalska’s Interdisciplinary Studio. Her bachelor's degree Plant.BioLab was prepared in cooperation with the Department of Genetics at the University of Gdansk, developing an interest bioartem. She creates videos, realizes performances, and builds installations. She is interested in relationships that arise along the nature-technology interface. She is trying to implement the project "Zambrów. City of Women" associated with her hometown. She lives and works in Warsaw.

KRZYSZTOF MANIAK

b. 1990

Graduate of the Intermedia Faculty of Fine Arts in Krakow, diploma in the Bogdan Achimescu’s Transmedia studio. A doctoral student at the Krakow Academy. He deals with film, photography and performance. His art is based on activities in the landscape - including beating paths in the fields, building twig structure. An intimate and meditative performance without an audience. His works were shown e.g. in the MSN in Warsaw, BWA Katowice, or the Baltic Gallery of Contemporary Art. He has won many awards, including the "Radio Three Talents" and the "Hestia Artistic Journey". He lives and works in Krakow and Tuchów.

ADAM LASKA

b. 1989

Graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice. He proficiently uses a variety of media, from painting, through drawing and photographs to performance activities. His art balances the border between the concepts of culture and nature, exploiting such categories as artificiality and imitation. His works were shown e.g. in the BWA Katowice, CCA Kronika in Bytom, or at the Youth Triennial in Orońsko. He lives and works in Gliwice.

Feel invited to Grey House Gallery at Corpus Christi (04.06.2015) in 1-6 pm.