March
4 - April 9, 2011
opening reception Friday, March 4, 2011 6-8pm
OSKAR DAWICKI
ÒPhantom PainÓ
Postmasters Gallery is pleased to present
"Phantom Pain," an exhibition of works by Polish artist Oskar
Dawicki. This will be his first solo show in the United States.
ÒPhantom PainÓ may be a test of how a distinctly Polish fatalism translates
outside. Oskar Dawicki is a well-known figure – in his trademark
blue brocade jacket – obsessed with the embarrassing, the grotesque, and
the absurd.
Born in 1971, Dawicki, who lives and works in Warsaw, belongs to a generation
of artists that came after Pawel Althamer, Katarzyna Kozyra and Adam Zmijewski.
His videos, performances, sculpture and photographs resonate with pathos and
dark humor. In his works, though, failure and misery become life-affirming,
absurd gestures; they start making perfect sense, and existential torment
reveals deeply felt humanity.
For his show at Postmasters, Dawicki makes a ring out of his fatherÕs kidney
stone, breaks a wall as if Bruce Lee went through it, has postcards sent to him
that state itÕs all the same everywhere, grows a plant in a bottle of
antidepressants, transforms a common ficus plant into marijuana, repeats
AdamÕs sin in the Garden of Eden, prevents his own death by hanging with
balloons attached to his hands, balances a circus acrobat on his head, and
draws his initials in rat poison, all the while apologizing endlessly for
disappointing you, the viewer, because his show is surely below your
expectations.
We definitely donÕt think so.
One of
DawickiÕs best-known works on view is a video, ÒTree of KnowledgeÓ (2008),
which premiered at Manifesta 7 in Rovereto, Italy, an exhibition curated by
Adam Budak.
In his words: ÒOskar Dawicki is known for ironic, critical and subtly
anarchistic actions, performances and installations that approach identity
issues in relation to the persona of the artist, institutional structures and
paradoxes of reality. Utilizing neo-Dadaist strategies, the artist highlights
and mocks the absurdities of society in this post-consumer phase of late
capitalism. Politics, economics and everyday life are reflected in the
distorted mirror of DawickiÕs art of resistance. Established norms of moral,
spiritual and social order are challenged and put on trial. His ÓTree of
KnowledgeÓ attempts to zoom in, with the artistÕs micro-lens, on the primordial
moments of human ethics and the foundation of knowledge. The artist re-enacts
the scene from the Bible, where Adam and Eve consume forbidden fruit from the
Tree of Knowledge, thus committing a sin and consequently being denied access
to the Tree of Life. DawickiÕs masquerade is grotesque and soaked in irony.
Stripping away pathos with the magic of a sorcerer, he narrates an epic of
desire in an age at the end of innocence. The fruit is half consumed; the
judgment is suspended and supposedly, hope for a new history is reborn.Ó
One of Oskar DawickiÕs videos will also be presented at Moving Image art fair,
in New York, March 3-6 www.moving-image.info
Postmasters Gallery located at 459 West 19th
Street between 9 and 10 Avenues
is open
Tuesday through Saturday 11 – 6
Please contact Magdalena Sawon or Paulina Bebecka with questions and image
requests postmasters@thing.net
www.postmastersart.com