Anega Grzeszykowska, Jan Smaga <br /> PRIVATE ARCHIVE

The exhibition is effec­tively the premiere of a col­lec­tive project by Aneta Grzeszykow­ska and Jan Smaga that has been con­ceived in paral­lel to each artist’s individual projects over the past few years.

The focal part of the exhibition is made up of photographs from a joint col­lec­tion which Grzeszykow­ska and Smaga refer to as their Private Archive. On the one hand, these images give a peek into the back­ground of the couple’s artistic prac­tices. On the other hand, they provide an indelible record of life in such a part­ner­ship. The images take us into the interiors of their home – their work­shops and their private spaces where they work, play games, indulge in romance, experimen­tation and relaxation.

Photographs from the couple’s ear­lier Plan series have been exhibited before and made their way into various publications. They are a kind of detailed sociological inven­tory of a con­tem­porary living space. Private Archive is a radical encroach­ment of that conven­tion. This is a jour­nal of emotion, which records the authors’ fan­tasies, which are sometimes beautiful, other times shameful. They weave these fan­tasies into the flesh of their bodies, into their art, pul­ling down the cur­tains and opening up an other­wise private discus­sion on making art and making love.

There hasn’t been such a brazen and sug­gestive approach in Polish art in recent years for entering into the private and artistic space shared by a couple, or to tel­ling the story of art as a prac­tice for a full life. Not the other way around.


Anega Grzeszykowska, Jan Smaga
PRIVATE ARCHIVE

10.04-26.05.2012

 



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