Anka Leśniak „Invisible inVisible / Niewidzialne Widzialnego”

Anka Leśniak’s exhibition recapitulates her most recent project Invisible inVisible/ Niewidzialne Widzialnego, which began in 2012 and comprises five works that draw on biographies of women “without a consistent position” in history – as the artist defines her protagonists. Leśniak focusses on ambiguous figures with outstanding achievements, who made a landmark in the history of their cities, areas, regions; yet their biographies are somewhat “tainted,” which denies them a firm place among figures commemorated in monuments. Such characters are difficult to interpret, mysterious, they remain on the margins; and their histories emerge as significant from the perspective of contemporary cultural discourses and the problems of otherness, identity, exclusion.

Anka Leśniak uses public space to evoke the memory of those women by means of her site-specific installations created on an architectural scale in abandoned buildings found in urban areas. Such places emanate a mysterious, somewhat dangerous aura, while they might as well become transparent to many passers-by or simply a local eyesore that offends against the sense of aesthetics. It is similar with the histories of women whose biographies the artist reviews through the prism of art and introduces into the social discourse, while symbolically revitalising elements of public space at the same time. Invisible inVisible is an intermedia project that embraces activities in public space, photographs, video art and the website www.invisiblewomen.info.

The exhibition at the Gdańsk City Gallery builds on biographies of three women: Michalina Tatarkówna-Majkowska – secretary of the Polish United Workers’ Party, who ruled in Łódź at the turn of the 1960s, Fifi Zastrow – actress of Jewish descent active in the German propaganda theatre, and Stanisława Przybyszewska, who developed a bond with Gdańsk during the last years of her life – a promising artist who struggled with morphine addiction. Dedicated to Przybyszewska is also an installation in Wałowy Park in Gdańsk, created for the opening of the exhibition. The women – so different in terms of their origins, education, epochs – share a sense of otherness, nonconformity to social models, and therefore to expectations towards women.

Besides works that rely on the media of video and photography, the exhibition also features a sculpture – an architectural-textual object, which marks a reference to the biographies of the evoked women and the artist’s previous installations in urban space.

Anka Leśniak concentrates on the role of women in history and art history. Graduate in art history from the University of Łódź (2003) and the Faculty of Visual Education /currently Faculty of Visual Arts/ at the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź (degree with honours, 2004). In 2013 Leśniak began her PhD studies at the Faculty of Sculpture and Intermedia of the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk. Participant in more than 50 individual and group shows in Poland and internationally. Holder of a scholarship of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage in 2011, Scholarship of the President of the City of Łódź for artists and cultural animators in 2015, Cultural Scholarship of the City of Gdańsk in 2016. The same year Leśniak was invited to an artistic residency in Vienna organised by the KulturKontakt foundation in collaboration with the Austrian government. For several years, the artist has been active in the field of site-specific works in abandoned buildings as well as explorations of the histories of women forgotten or marginalised for various reasons. Leśniak relies on the research methodology of “artistic investigation,” conversations with people, archival research, openness to twists of fate and forces of chance – everything that can contribute to formulating an artistic statement.