Wystawy

September 2013
Exhibition at the LIFT Art Gallery,  opening on 13 September 2013

Retrospective exhibition showing a majority of Maria Juchnowska’s works.
Working title – The Body, Private but not Personal

Exhibited works are an overview of Maria Juchnowska’s works created by the artist over the past 4-5 years.  These are mainly ceramic sculptures combined with animations and films, all of which make up the whole of artistic installations designed and created by the artist.

“I want to create art which is personal but not private” is the principal  message in my art projects. Speaking through art is the primary objective in my creations. Most frequently, I draw inspirations for my works from private experiences, situations, thoughts I had in my life. Some of them is the rebellion and cry to show a problem, some others are a reflection on various issues like death, evanescence, violence, politics and gender issues.
When creating, I hope my works will become close in the meaning and reception for everyone who wishes to explore their sense, objective and message. I try not to moralize or create one minute scandal. I am expressive in the way I think is best for me.

The human body has always been an unending inspiration for my ideas and works. In the majority of my projects, I’ve predominantly focused myself on specific parts of the human body to draw viewers’ attention to the problems and issues I am preoccupied with.  In my works, I consciously use the human body. It is a symbol known and close not only to me, but also to a recipient of my works. This is how it stimulates a certain interactive installation that includes my works.

A few works of mine will be shown at the exhibition:

2011
The death of the body

In the work  The death of the body, I, in a way, demonstrate my body through the use of ceramic techniques. No moment, feeling or emotion connected with it can ever be repeated. My torso is created by me, it is me who chooses when it is “alive” or “dead”. An inspiration for this work was a private experience of a close person’s death and the process of dying and also, an analysis of death in the contemporary society and how it is perceived and presented. This installation involving sculptural, ceramic and video performance gives viewers a greater space for interpretation, not forcing them to interpret the work in a particular manner.  This is my conscious and premeditated action.

2010
Mine is Bigger than Yours
My work Mine is Bigger than Yours literarily treats the issue of female gender. A female reproductive organ, full of blood, veins and muscles is processed into a decorative object. In this tricky way, I challenge the model of the eternally young and beautiful female which is all-present in the media and society. At the same time, this tricky way is an enhancement of the female’s role through the showing of  the society’s pressure she must either struggle with or accept.

2010
Violence is Weakness

I show violence as a self-contained process, often unending and repetitive in its banal structure and operation.  As a cyclic process that changes its meaning when the victim, seeking the justice, becomes the tormentor and the tormentor becomes the victim.

2009
Politics is a Terror of Minds. Consume.

Is politics still an art (according to the Aristotle’s theory) or the brainwashing that  actually exploits the weakest? Does it mean that we accept it and – being fools – consume what we have been told by wise men?

2009
Symbol

Symbols are only empty bottles. They function only through what you put into them – personal symbols means personal alphabet, our uniqueness is all we have.
Louise Bourgeois

I use consumer kitsch to talk about a symbol and how it is perceived. By multiplying it in porcelain, I assign a new value to it, which is no only a consumer value, but it also assumes a symbolic meaning.  
This work underlines the significance of symbols and our habits related to them as well as the context in which they are exposed.  Orange Alternative movement of Wrocław was one of my inspirations.

 

Relation Exhibitions

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