ART-PRESENTATION: Anna Konik

Anna KonikCombining video semi-documentary, installation, performance, and sculpture, Anna Konik’s art operates in a non-material realm, giving material shape to that which is often invisible. Meeting the protagonists of her work by accident, during her travels, Anna Konik creates her works from the basis of intimate contact with the person in question. Reaching into the deeper spheres of human existence – perceptions, emotions, intuition, her video installations aim to render immortal the human condition.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Anna Konik Archive

The exhibition of Anna Konik “A Grain of Sand in the Pupil of the Eye. Video works 2000–2015”, summarizes an important stage in her artistic practice, above all with video. The artist combines the aesthetics of audio-visual media with the spatial form of an installation, in which the dynamic presence of the viewer gives the works a transformational dimension and personalizes its reception. Four video installations are shown in the exhibition, “In the same city, under the same sky…”, (for the first time, in its full version of 35 films), “Villa of the Enchanted”, “Play Back (of Irene)” and “Our Lady’s Forever”. Other works, such as “Toys” and “Transparency”, find their representation in the form of spatial models, sculptural props, and documentation. The context for these projects includes never before seen video footage, which complete and complement them, serving as stage directions, but also the student works of Anna Konik, her drawings and photographs. Man is at the heart of Anna Konik’s research – almost all of her works are an investigation into the Other, which arise as a consequence of meeting people. Assuming the perspective of subjective experiences, the artist transfers them to the social dimension, and the recipient is confronted not only with an individual history, but also with the real problems of the contemporary world, which hurt the same as a “Grain of sand in the pupil of the eye”. The video installation “In the same city, under the same sky…” is dedicated to the theme of refugees. This work in progress (2011–15) is presented for the first time on such a large scale. In its current shape it consits of 35 film episodes produced in Stockholm, Białystok, Bucharest, Istanbul and Nantes. In ghettos and centers for refugees Anna found women touched by horror of armed conflicts and racial oppression from many countries: Chechnya, Ingushetia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Congo, Nigeria and Cameroon. 35 women told the artist their stories, which have been recaptured in front of the camera by Swedish, Polish, Romanian, Turkish and French women living in the centres of mentioned cities, who at the request of artist incorporated themselves in the role of refugees, giving them faces and voices. For Anna Konik, art is a sensitive cognitive instrument, through which she communicates to recipients what for her was most significant in the work on successive realizations. The fringes of society prevail in the interests of Anna Konik. Most often these fringes consist of the alienated, the excluded, and the lonely. Konik maneuvers through them with the empathy of a careful observer.

Info: Curator: Ewa Gorządek, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Ul. Jazdów 2 Street, Warsaw, Duration: 4/12/15-14/2/16, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 12:00-19:00, http://csw.art.pl

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