Thief of Paintings

Thief of Paintings / 03.03.2017 - 01.04.2017

In his artistic practice Andrzej Jarodzki chooses a various role for himself – he is a Don Kichot, a mountebank, a thief and a Dillinger, he also repeatedly highlights that “there is no such thing as professionalism in art and only at the moment of creation one tend to be an artist”. Therefore he quits the universal idea of heroisation of a figure of artist and the need for a continuous sacrifice for art.

He also breaks the general expectations for artists to format their art by using a singular medium and cultivates the emancipating concept of art’s absoluteness instead. Jarodzki expands means of expression maximally: from painting, sculpture, prints and photography to ready made, installation, utopic projects; and realizes the most crazy concepts. Obviously one of them is the objet trouvé entitled “A Train to Heaven” [Pociąg do nieba] located on the Strzegomski Square in Wrocław, which is literally a locomotive installed almost vertically like it would shoot up to heaven.

Although he uses a various of different mediums, the most visible in Jarodzki’s art is painting within which the artist takes a trouble not only to register the reality, but also – what is emphasized by the curator – “to create something what might be called a photography of his memory and imagination”. Those realizations are determined by “a gigantic thrust of images, a popular media and consumption iconosphere” that is juxtaposed with “a presence of places that resemble those from the Schulz’s Street of Crocodiles: shabby houses, rubbish, muddle. (…) It is a world of garbage and junkyards. A world of dumps and abandoned factories.” Therefore the exhibition’s title is related with a specific artistic practice based on the idea to steal or extract what is visible from the memory, thoughts, dreams and unconsciousness reservoir.

Next to materialized art objects there were numerus spontaneous art actions and happenings that had defined Jarodzki’s oeuvre. Nowadays they exist only as a single images registered on a photographic paper.
Consequently the “Thief of Paintings” art show will integrate material art pieces with a documentation of works created in the late 80s and early 90s. The exhibition will therefore include both objects and paintings which are an evidence of artist’s interest in engineering and where ‘machines’ are the dominant motif, as well as posters, drawings and archives that will introduce viewers with non-existent stage design projects, installations and ephemeral happenings.

Video from the opening:

Photos from the opening:
https://www.facebook.com/pg/galeria.miejska/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1273394536070290