12-22 August, 10-17/Arrangements
22 August, 19:30/Vernissage
26 August, 18/Embroidery night – Anna Nizio (?)
2,9 September, 10-17/You are warmly welcome – Gosia Golińska
14 September, 19:30/Finishing day of the exhibition. Performance „Cloud” by Katarzyna Pastuszak
The title of Gosia Golińskia and Anna Nizio’s exhibition „my grrrl” can be translated either as “we wenches” or “my girlfriend”. It references the underground feminist American punk formation „Riot grrrl”, which was active in the 90’s. Through the distorted English word “girls” – the girls, artists intentionally direct our attention to the essentially feminist overtone of their works rendering these social aspects a commentary on the role of women in the contemporary world a common element of their works, however remote they remain aesthetically.
The 10-minute-long film by Anna Nizio “Ladies ring twice, Gentlemen only once” is the story of the relationships experienced by women working in the posh German brothels. In the film, Nizio has assembled photos she had been collecting for three years. They show the day-to-day life of the Berlin prostitutes, their regular work, joint celebrations and privacy. The slide show presentation interrupted by short film sequences narrated by a woman’s calm, not to say monotonous voice always employing the plural form, becomes a story of normality, which is abnormal. The documentary is very subtle on the one hand, but powerful on the other; thought-provoking and leaving no room for stigmatising or moralistic notions. It is a story of ordinary women that have made a conscious, unforced decision for some important reasons we cannot be aware of but that also entails a life of social seclusion.
Gosia Golińska’s installations are created from clothes, fabrics and everyday objects – mostly gifts, sometimes found or bought by the artist. For the purpose of this exhibition, Gosia Golińska will create a “room for art”: the empty space of the Gallery will be filled with objects, installations, paintings, collections and inscriptions. In her own words: “I want to create a living organism with eyes, heart, brain, veins, stomach and intestines. I will humbly try to feel at home with “art”. Here I will exist, draw, tidy, have guests; here – I will celebrate my fiftieth birthday and “wash my dirty linen” until September, 14th”.
Golińska will exhibit her installations: „Sztandary”/ „Banners” made from used clothes and fabrics and „Wszystkie jesteśmy córkami”/ “All of us are daughters” in which she has assembled dresses either given to her or her own. The work is a continuation of a long term project (sukienka-do-ziemi.blogspot.com) dedicated to the solidarity of women. All the objects, especially the clothes employed by Golińska carry their own stories, they are sources of information about people that used to be covered with them but are now un-covered by them. One more wedding dress – given to the artist – will be filled with the body of Katarzyna Pastuszak in the performance “Cloud”
„My grrrl” is the rattling name of the women’s encounter/exhibition. I had not seen her for ages until I bumped into Ania in the streets of Berlin. For the last two years we have been planning to meet and finally these unaccomplished endeavours resulted in the idea of a joint exhibition. This has become possible due to the hospitality of the Gallery in Piwna street: Ania will show her video-works, the other room will be mine.
Since August 12, I will get involved in the arrangements for the vernissage on August 22. I plan to fill the empty space of the venue with my objects, installations, paintings, collections and inscriptions. I want to create a living organism with eyes, heart, brain, veins, stomach and intestines. I will humbly try to feel at home with “art”. Here I will exist, draw, tidy, have guests; here – I will celebrate my fiftieth birthday and “wash my dirty linen” until September, 14th.
The formal decision the exhibition is constructed around stems from the permanently sensed compulsion to keep our surrounding neat and in order which coincides with the urge to experience energizing chaos and the joy of discovery. I collect objects, clothes especially and treat them as carriers of information, like dresses for example, by which certain ideologies are implemented.
I will use the freedom offered by the Gallery and my own inner trembling in order to organize a changeable, temporary space, in which the density will be suffocating and fairness – liberating. The “room for art” will mostly be assembled from installations: the first one elaborated and pleated from clothes and fabrics that I gallantly called „Sztandary”/ “Banners”. It is a dark, straddled and heavy eruption of colours and textures floating over the ground. The other „Wszystkie jesteśmy córkami”/ “All of us are daughters”, created from dresses that were either my own or given to me, I dedicate to the solidarity of women. It is a mental continuation of last year’s project in which one hundred tightly packed dresses were hung next to over a dozen texts. Here, they will be neatly laid next to each other, one on top of another in spite of everything. I dedicate this work to an eight-year-old bride.
A wedding dress with a four-meter-long veil together with its story is a recent gift. It is a third wedding dress in the sukienka-do-ziemi.blogspot.com project. Filled again with a woman’s body, it will come alive on the final day of the exhibition on September 14. The jointly written performance “Cloud” will be staged by Katarzyna Pastuszak. The dress will then find its place in the space of the room. I would like to extend the invitation to the on-going project sukienka-do-ziemi.blogspot.com, which is run without a deadline: tell your story or/and give me your dress. You are welcome to join the activity, to be in the Gallery together or individually. The itinerary can be found in the Gallery’s office or on the website.
What my room is going to look like will not be known until I start the assembling process, which is intended to be the creation of a spatial collage from the previously prepared elements. I want it to be friendly, evoking such words as: submission, courage, maturity, friendship, community, diligence, responsibility, joy and presence.
The project is carried out thanks to the scholarship of the Marshall of the Pomeranian Voivodeship, which means that I and other taxpayers have financially contributed to its realization.
