exhibition view
Dry Crust and Oceans of Liquid Matter
Artists: Anetta Mona Chisa & Lucia Tkáčová, Lucy McKenzie & Markus Proschek, Filip Rybkowski, Ariel Schlesinger and Michał Zawada
18.03 – 14.04, 2019
Photos: courtesy of Horse & Pony
The so-called revolutions of 1848 were but poor incidents — small fractures and fissures in the dry crust of European society. However, they denounced the abyss. Beneath the apparently solid surface, they betrayed oceans of liquid matter, only needing expansion to rend into fragments continents of hard rock. Noisily and confusedly they proclaimed the emancipation of the Proletarian, i.e. the secret of the 19th century, and of the revolution of that century.
Karl Marx, Speech at the anniversary of the People’s Paper, April 14th, 1856, London
The exhibition concentrates on a question what is an art work, understood as a created object in the context of art history? How were history and the theory of art formed by particular visions and imagination, which then influence our own perception and understanding, taste and style?
The object of art is the result of a complex process of creation. It gains solid and physical form, which is the embodiment of abstract ideas, associations, patterns of thought and the transformation of these. In the exhibition, this creative process will be compared to a phenomena from nature: a volcano. Its structure and way of functioning unites two physical contradictions: liquid, heated matter which is in permanent transition on the inside and a cooled, firm layer on the outside, which keeps this undefined substance within a solid framework.
Furthermore, a volcano can be seen as a metaphor, especially in the context of the nineteenth century revolution and the social and political changes rooted in romantic literature and the Socialist movement.
This comparison of volcano and social revolution, which occurs beneath the solid surface of legitimized social constructs appears in writings by Karl Marx or in poems by Adam Mickiewicz, Poland’s 19th-century national poet & activist, a supporter of the Polish independence movement.
The exhibition relates also to current context of social and political crises and this permanent tension and interaction between two different ideas or visions about our future.
The concept of the exhibition and its structure is also strongly influenced by the space itself. The metaphor of a volcano, seen as a process of matter transformation, will be translated into the space of the Horse & Pony Fine Arts.
The narration, which begins in lower parts and moves to the upper space of the Horse & Pony Fine Arts, carries several ideas. Firstly, it represents the creative process itself: from an abstract, undefined idea to a final physical form. Then it poses the question of how art and its history have been created and shaped? And how does that influence participants’ and viewers’ understanding? At the end it also relates to the phenomena of revolution, seen as lava, which tries to escape and extinguish the hard structures we see.
Exhibition concept: Michał Zawada, Filip Rybkowski & Paulina Olszewska
Exhibition partner: Cultural Department of the City of Cracow
Special thanks to Gregor Podnar Berlin