Mardi 23 Septembre 2014 15:04:16 par actuphoto dans Expositions

During this year Warsaw Gallery Weekend Lookout Gallery will present an individual exhibition of Andrzej Świetlik’s - Artists Did Try to Come, Willingly.

In the world of art, Andrzej Swietlik is most associated with the neo-avant-garde group, Lodz Kaliska. Yet, the exhibition Artists Did Try to Come, Willingly presents Świetlik from a different angle - as an author of excellent portrait photographs created for advertising purposes. Although usually associated with a commercial activity, where the room for creative expression is limited, at the time when the presented photos were taken, a photographer working in advertising, was left with almost full freedom of creation.
In those times, still not long ago, when digital tools for post-production were not in use and the portrayed icons of popculture were not celebrities of one season but true-born artists (mostly musicians), a photographer working for the show business did not have to face the dilemma: art or commerce. In this context Świetlik’s exhibition is a portrait of a gone age, however the artist himself has maintained similar way of working until today.

The first from a series of 24 black and white portraits presented at the exhibition Artists Did Try to Come, Willingly was taken by Andrzej Świetlik in 1983 and the last one in 2002. The story he is telling through the photos is a story of last years of the previous century and the 19 years dividing the first and the last work was not only the time of crisis of the 80’s, followed by political transformation, but also the time of big changes in visual culture.

At the beginning of the 90’s Andrzej Świetlik had already had an experience of working with a photographer, Władysław Lem, and the Polish foreign community’s company, Polmark, which built a professional photographic studio in Warsaw. At the same time, he worked in a tiny studio in one of the tenement house’s basement at Nowy Świat in Warsaw. The studio had it’s artistic history – in the 60‘s it used to serve Eustachy Kossakowski.

The title of the exhibition, Artists Did Try to Come, Willingly, perfectly describes in what circumstances photo sessions were created in the old times. Swietlik’s studio was regularly visited by musicians, actors, set decorators as well as friends and family members. Among people who faced his camera lenses were: Kora Jackowska, Czeslaw Niemen, Maryla Rodowicz, and Grzegorz Ciechowski and more.

© Andrzej Świetlik, Pierwszy Obywatel GC, 1988
 

The meetings were

Lookout Gallery
ul. Puławska 41/22
02 – 508 Warszawa
tel. 690011771 kontakt@lookoutgallery.pl www.lookoutgallery.pl
ususally more a sort of social gatherings. An artist had big room for creation, an artistic carte blanche. During some sessions traditional portraits were made, but sometimes models were taken into an imaginary, staged world where Swietlik humorously improvised, creating references to the history of art, surrealism or aesthetics of socialist realism. The characteristic portraits made on monochromatic, modest background could later be seen on the album’s covers and in advertisements.
The exhibition does not only show the photographs made for commercial purposes but also the ones which were taken during Lodz Kaliska’s performances and which portray the movement’s members: Makary Andrzej Wielogorski or Andrzej Kwietniewski. Those prints made for the photographer’s own pleasure, or as he likes to call it „for my own pleasure and the pleasure of my fellows“, were a kind of preparation for the proffesional work. Art was being mixed with commercial orders and vice versa. The context of the works is often aimed at ridiculing the characters and the author himself is not afraid of depriving his friends of identity or confront them with a female nudity. The portrait of Andrzej Kwietniewski against the bare buttocks, taken in 2002, is a frame closing the exhibition, an ironic supplement that refers to the transitions of the last years of the 20th century to the decline of the analogue technic and contemplative photography.
The exhibition was supported by the Art Supporting Fund at the Authors‘ Association ZaiKS. The exhibition is organized by the Foundation for Photography Development Lookout and Lookout Gallery.

Special event:

27 September, 2014 at 5 p.m. , Puławska str. 41/22, Warsaw
You need to show up, you need to show off – a meeting with a sphotographer Andrzej Świetlik and a musician, ex basist of Republika band, Leszek Biolik

Andrzej Świetlik (born 1951), graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. One of the creators of the avant-garte, anarchistic group - Łodź Kaliska. He works in the field of art and advertisment. The main subject of his works is a man, from portrait to artistic impression. Author of many individual exhibitions: Bright Portraits, A Little Bit More Quiet, Like a Children, 5 Hopes, Fairytales, Blue Firefly. Together with members of Łódź Kaliska he had many exhibitions in prestigious galleries all over the world: in Marseille, Tokyo, Bejing, Vienna, Cologne, Budapest. His works are a part of public and private collections in Poland and abroad.

Lookout Gallery (created in 2012) presents and promotes the works of the contemporary photographers in Poland and abroad. The
gallery cooperates not only with photographers but also with experienced curators and experts from the field of photography and related art genres. It’s program comprises organization of exhibitions, promotion of artists and publications, education as well as a broad spectrum of activities aiming at the development of photography – as art and as a collectible object.