29 07 2022
– 07 10 2022

COLD LIPS OF THE WAVES Alicja Pakosz, Wiktoria Walendzik

Dates: 29 July – 7 October 2022
Opening night: 29 July 2022 from 6 AM to 9 PM
Venue: GGM1, Piwna 27/29 Street
Artists: Alicja Pakosz, Wiktoria Walendzik
Curator: Michalina Sablik
Visual identification: Kaja Gliwa
Coordinator: Andżelika Kliś
Opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday 12 PM – 7 PM

 

Your lips of the waves are so cold, he said to me during our last meeting. He then left for good, like the last train from Sopot to Warsaw, like the memorable last night on a summer camp or a package holiday in August. Your arms are Magellan’s boat,he used to say when we walked along my coast. The sand measured seconds, minutes, hours; it played its wicked game with the wind. It was inevitable. We knew it was going to end suddenly and painfully, yet we could not believe it. Instead, we wanted to draw handfuls from those shared moments. We were as different as two drops of water. For him life was the port tavern, for me – the deep, deep blue ocean.

 

I told him I had places where precious ambers were born, where the Sun touched my raptures and curves. The man spoke wisely about insects, forests, the Eocene and billions of years locked in golden stones. Humans! They could think of such beautiful stories: of kings, piano players, romantic writers and mysterious chambers. They gave universal meaning to accidental events. They pursued and found sense in everything. Now they are gone, leaving behind empty hotel lobbies, souvenir shops, fish fry shops and lonely ports. Sunscreens, flip-flops, deckchairs, butterfly nets, newspapers. Today no one is going to read the breaking news of the days that are gone.

 

I wipe one lonely salty tear. I will lock this memory in a glass box and I will carry it close to my heart, like a precious diamond. When everybody could already sense the smell of the approaching catastrophe, when the weather alerts vibrated in our pockets and the temperature in the shadow reached 36 degrees centigrade, he walked barefoot to the spot where the sand collapsed under his weight and said: Your lips of the waves are so cold…

Michalina Sablik

 

Alicja Pakosz (born 1996 in Tychy) works in the medium of painting, sculpture and large‑scale diorama. She has been a postgraduate student of the Pedagogical University of Kraków Doctoral School since 2021. She is a graduate of the Faculty of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, where she studied under Professor Andrzej Bednarczyk. She participated in a number of solo and group exhibitions, including at the CSW Kronika Art Centre, BWA Gallery in Katowice and other notable art galleries such as Arsenał, Raster and Labirynt. She won the main prize in the 2021 Nowy Obraz Nowe Spojrzenie (New Image New Look) competition and the Best Art Diploma 2020 award of the Gdańsk City Gallery. She lives in Kraków.

 

Wiktoria Walendzik (born 1994 in Łódź) is a sculptor. She earned her MA (with honours) from the Faculty of Media Art at the Academy of Art in Szczecin in September 2020. She took part in many solo and group exhibitions, including at the TRAFO Centre for Contemporary Art in Szczecin, CSW Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw, Zachęta Gallery, Serce Człowieka Gallery, MS1 Gallery in Łódź and Rondo Sztuki in Katowice. Finalist of many art contests, including Hestia Artistic Journey (2019),  Project Room 2019 at the CSW Ujazdowski Castle and Grey House Foundation Competition, and recipient of the Best Art Diploma 2020 award of the Gdańsk City Gallery. She lives and works in Przewodowice, Rogówiec, Warsaw and Rawa Mazowiecka.

 

„Cold lips of the waves” exhibition by Alicja Pakosz and Wiktoria Walendzik is an award of the Gdańsk City Gallery in the competition for the Best Diplomas of 2020, organised by the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk.

 

Media partnerts:
Magazyn Szum, Notes Na 6 Tygodni, Magazyn Linia, Prestiż Magazyn Trójmiejski, gdansk.pl, trójmiasto.pl