Symptomatic paintings

A painterly description of transformations taking place in various architectural spaces.

Closing exhibition for my master diploma.

In connection with historical conditions, Wrocław has an extraordinary capital in the form of tens of thousands of flats, which after the end of the war were automatically recognized as state property. The pioneers were first located in buildings that survived the war without much damage, and the remaining buildings were inventoried, secured and, when the technical condition allowed, rebuilt. Growing demand and general poverty forced the authorities to locate more than one family in the vast apartments of the Breslauer bourgeoisie.

In Wrocław, there are currently about 42,000 municipal units in 1,515 buildings (as of December 31, 2012), which constitutes about 18% of the city’s housing stock.  At the same time, as many as 84% of the buildings were built by 1940. The problem of living in buildings which are more than one hundred years old does not concern only their most often poor technical condition. The mere fact that they were designed in a different era poses many problems. They could include such mundane inconveniences as the lack of a lift or an underground parking space.

It is not without a reason that the topic of my thesis is based on the issue of symptoms. Symptoms as a phenomenon directly dependent on the event causing them does not determine this event, but only indicates what it is. In case of lack of knowledge about the phenomenon, its symptoms may be the only source of information, so that the phenomenon itself will be defined only on the basis of symptoms, so can symptoms replace the experience of the phenomenon? I am not interested in defining the mental state of the local community of Wrocław, but what effects it causes. I have chosen flats as the goal of my observations because they reflect the condition of the people who live in them, and in the case of Wrocław, they are additionally burdened with a difficult history. The paintings are made in oil-resin and acrylic technique on canvas. The main assumption is an attempt to describe the phenomena that occur in architecture, the source of which was the act or omission of a man, a former inhabitant, but also the owner. Above-average spaces hide traces of primeval beauty, the ravages of war or political changes. At the moment of selling the apartment and announcing the tender, the apartment is made available for inspection, which allows you to observe the state of the here and now, without precise knowledge of the previous tenants.

Symptomatic Paintings
professor Piotr Błażejewski
doctor Anna Kołodziejczyk

Architectural Entropy Symptoms
professor Paweł Jarodzki
doctor Kamil Moskowczenko

Architectural entropy symptoms: Norwida 26/3a

Tinfoil tape site specific installation replicates the proportions of the kitchen in a socialist flat in the 1970s.

Fountain

Fountain, 2018, Comfort Zone, Art-Hub Wyspa Tamka

Comfort of being responsible only for oneself, goes hand in hand with personal development and realization of one’s dreams, but also with ordinary hedonism. Being a parent requires huge sacrifice and revaluations of life values. It is a decision that is often postponed for the last moment. When accidental, it becomes a cause of panic and fear for the unknown.

Water slowly accumulates at the tip of a stretched condom and just when it is big enough to be seen by the viewer, it falls into a glass bowl. The Fountain resembles an hourglass mechanism, only it can’t be turned upside down. Women’s biology limits their fertility potential. And social pressure pushes the man towards true adulthood.

Installation was part of Comfort Zone exhibition.

Comfort Zone FB

Survival 15

Revitalisation, 2017, 15th Survival Art Review: Stratification

The work raises the subject of revitalization and improving the economic efficiency of buildings. Insulating houses is one of the manifestation of “taking matters into their own hands” by citizens and shaping the public space according to their peculiar tastes and preferences.

During the period of political transformation in Poland in the 1990s we could witness the birth of so-called “styrofoaming”, i.e. large-scale thermal insulation of buildings, especially tower blocks. The stark violation of the architectural concept of the Chemistry Auditorium, the absurd breach of its originally light and open body by adding the optically heavy elements on the elevations may be economically rational due to the increased thermal efficiency. However, the rare opportunity of looking at the “styrofoamed” structure from within makes us aware of how destructive uncontrolled interference could be.

Survival Art Review

Survival 14

Big Data, 2016, 14th Survival Art Review: Workroom

In economy, Big Data refers to a set of information of a large size, complex and varied. Paweł Karpinski’s installation is constructed on the basis of a print-out of the accounting structure of an international corporation. The information included in such sets is encoded, and as the size and complexity of the accounting structure of an organisation increases, it becomes increasingly difficult to crack the code.

Such databases normally exist in a virtual form, allowing to quickly and accurately find data. The monumental print-out obviously makes the set less functional. However, it offers and opportunity to face the complexity of the represented system on a purely abstract level.

Survival Art Review