Nobuko Hayashi & Anna Orbaczewska-Niedzielska
Exhibition: 10.03-12.04.2015
Place: Gdańsk City Gallery 1
Opening: 08.03.2015, 17.00
“We were both strangers in Germany when we met. We realized how differently we perceive “the Nature” as “a part of landscape“ Nature, landscape located in the urban landscape has become the main theme of our exploration, the topic that became our meetingpoint. Exceptional in this project is the clash of two different cultures from which we come from, especially the issue of the perception of The Nature. In Japan, where Buddhism is strongly rooted, human being is perceived as a part of nature, and things that are “natural” are not automaticaly perceived as beautiful and positive. The emphasis is put on multitude of natural phenomena, including the humble existence in man. Nothing is pre-defined as “good”, “bad”, “ugly” or “beautiful”. In European culture and tradition of the Christianity the human being is always at the center – right at the top of the pyramid of earthly creatures. The Nature is subordinate to him and is actually created for that purpose – to serve the human. That what was human was seen for centuries as a “beautiful” and “good”. Despite the fact that we live in the era of the global village and have access to many visual sources, multitude of information and travelling became popular – this human-centered vision, stemming from the culture in which we grew up has still a huge impact on our individual perception. Analysis of these differences of perception on such an important element that is the Nature is the main objective of our project . We are looking for our meetingpoint.”
Nobuko Hayashi & Anna Orbaczewska-Niedzielska
The exhibition „meetingpoint“ is the second presentation of the artists‘ project, which began during their meeting in Bremen in 2012. Since then, they have been in regular contact, mailing and talking. One of them brings up a theme, and the other one develops it – its result becoming a continuing part of their discussion.
“meetingpoint” is an interesting example of a cooperation between artists whose output is seemingly distant. The exhibition itself presents the effects of their conceptual work over a shared subject, which took place in different parts of the world and made use of varied media.
Nobuko Hayashi is an artist concentrated on the transformations of perception from the moment of the first glance, through the observation in context of already experienced events and acquired knowledge. Hayashi creates conceptual works of art, installations, drawings and videos, whose major characteristic is a considerably reduced, minimalist visual layer.
Anna Orbaczewska-Niedzielska is a painter, mainly interested in finding visual ways of presenting mental processes. Human beings are a crucial element of her works, often depicted in prosaic situations within the natural landscape.
Additionally, the exhibition “meetingpoint” breaches the subject of the relationship between an artist and a curator. This time, the role of a curator is considerably limited to being an observer and organizer, rather than constituting a creative part of the project.
„meetingpoint“ is the 14th exhibition from the „dialogues” series presented in Gdańsk City Gallery since 2009
