Duo

Duo, Galeria XX1, Warsaw, 2017

The title refers to the exhibition which took place in Galeria XX1 in November 2014. It was called “Trio” and consisted of a triple projection of digital images combined with sound – noisy fragments drawn from improvised music and free jazz. The current exhibition is devoid of sound effects, it focuses on the spatial and visual side. The exhibition idea is a combination of two painting installations “WAR / RAW” and “Field of Influence”, the link and the common element of both is color, understood here as both a purely sensual phenomenon and a potential carrier of significant meanings.

The “WAR / RAW” installation consists of 6 paintings on canvas, colorful gallery walls and a film projection. The title is a juxtaposition of the English word-palindrome. The paintings were created using colored paint pigments under which the letters forming the title conceal. The film screening shows the presentation of street protests, conflicts, violence and wars, and at the same time completes the color scheme of the whole. Words and images refer to issues related to the global, increasing radicalization of social moods and their increasingly more pronounced polarization, and on the other hand to the ongoing virtual information war and the impact it has on all of us.

The triptych ”Field of Influence” consists of three paintings measuring 150/200 cm each. They are made using graphite powder, a glue binder and electrical cables that “emerge” from the surface of the paint and constitute their most powerful color element. The paintings are hung in such a way that the viewer can stand in the same place at the same time to “experience” each of them, so that, as the title suggests, he finds himself in their sphere of influence. There is no specific message here, it is rather a message in itself, about confronting the viewer with a certain amount of energy, which can be understood as a constant flow of information, electricity, electromagnetic waves and universal energy, connected with human spiritual side.

Paintings of the WAR / RAW series on the exhibition were hung opposite each other, imitating mirrors. Seeing each other between the mirrors causes the multiplication of our figure and the space in which we find ourselves extends to infinity. This disruption of the normal state, a phenomenon known for ages and yet still intriguing, especially in the present times when the issues of the rapid development of technology, artificial horizons, the expansion of reality and increasing difficulties in understanding the world cause that man ceases to be “the measure of all things” anymore. The moment of looking at oneself while being in the midst of mirrors can create a feeling of what is “here and now”, it is able to make us aware of our location, recall the real existence, physical aspects of our existence and the possibilities with which we are endowed.

Maciek Duchowski