Venue: GGM2, ul. Powroźnicza 13/15
Date: 22.03 – 09.06.2024 r.
Opening: 02.02.2024, 6pm
Artist: Alicja Żebrowska
Curator: Jakub Banasiak
Visual identification: Kuba Maria Mazurkiewicz
Transition is usually discussed in social, political and economic terms. The title of the exhibition suggests a different approach– here, transition is treated as the time of the great unknown, a state in-between, an interregnum: the time when the old order no longer exists and the new one has not yet emerged.
The Mystery is Looking showcases Alicja Żebrowska’s major works from the time of transition in Poland in the late 1980s and early 1990s. During that period, Żebrowska took inspiration from esotericism and mysticism. In the reality of a crumbling world and the simultaneous creation of a new one, Żebrowska looked for traces of the cosmic unity and harmony of being. The astral union of male and female elements, the alchemical transformation, the figure of the androgyne, the collision of light and matter, the perfection of architecture of the universe, the primeval time enchanted in the Tatra Mountains, and timelessness of the transformative everyday life – these are just some of the motifs present in Żebrowska’s early works. All this puts her oeuvre in a broader context: the art of the new spirituality from the transition era.
The central part of the current exhibition are Żebrowska’s works from her exhibitions in Kraków (1986), Vienna (1992) and Orońsko (1992), with video films from 1992–1995. Most of these works were not exhibited later. They were gradually forgotten, with the exception of the films that were interpreted as “feminist” and “critical” in accordance with hegemonic discourses of the art history during the time of transition. Notwithstanding such interpretations, this exhibition aims at restoring Żebrowska’s early works to their historical context and the artist’s underlying intentions. The context in question was the mystery of transition; the time beyond time, the eternal now. Żebrowska was aware that the mystery was looking – and she was looking at it herself.
The exhibition can be visited from the beginning to the end and from the end to the beginning.
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Alicja Żebrowska was born in Zakopane in 1956. She is one of the most important Polish contemporary artists. She has participated in dozens of solo and group exhibitions. Her works from the 1990s are part of the Polish art canon of the 20th century. Between 1978–1981, she studied at the Art Institute of the Maria Curie Skłodowska University in Lublin, from which she graduated with a diploma in sculpture in 1981. During the period from 1989 to 1992, she completed postgraduate studies under Professor Wander Bertoni at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, and was also an auditing student at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. In 1992, she obtained a post graduate diploma at the studio of Professor Bertoni. From 1993 to 1996, she worked with the Zderzak Gallery in Krakow. She was a member of the Fort Sztuki Artistic Association in Krakow from 1996 to 2006. She has been collaborating with Galeria Nova in Krakow since 2008. She lives and works in Zakopane.
