Foreign Bodies
2020
Curated by Katie Zazenski of Stroboskop (Warsaw, PL) and Brittney Connelly of Carnation Contemporary (Portland, OR, USA)
Curated by Katie Zazenski of Stroboskop (Warsaw, PL) and Brittney Connelly of Carnation Contemporary (Portland, OR, USA)
co-curator of Foreign Bodies installed at Stroboskop in Warsaw Pl in 2019, travel to Portland, OR in 2020 to be shown at Disjecta Contemporay Art Center
Foreign Bodies is a screening of nine bold works that position the body as a place of spirited resistance, a challenge to nation-state sponsored collectivism that so often denies and/or threatens the lived experience of its people. Within this screening artists employ simplified activations to reclaim autonomy from systems of industry, government & generalized collective identities.
While Foreign Bodies hosts artists whose works span vast physical distances (Berlin, Dublin, Warsaw, Helenski, Vienna & Portland), the space between these places grows small through the use of symbolic gestures that cultivate an empathetic common gathering place. Inspired by the current exhibition at Stroboskop, W Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej językiem urzędowym jest język polski (The official language of the Republic of Poland is Polish) by artist Daniel Kotowski, Kotowski’s work is heavily influenced by Foucault’s notion of biopower, a political rationality that requires normalization and standardization, that governs citizens ‘to ensure, sustain, and multiply life, to put life in order.’ For Kotowski, normalization is troublesome as he does not speak, his experience of ‘normal’ is not the standard, or expected experience of ‘normal’. Much like Kotowski, Foreign Bodies doesn’t work from a place of normal rather it relishes in unstandardized, non-systematized gestures of expression.
Through these works we explore the potential that remains despite the symbols, tools, and methodologies devised to control, and how they can also be platforms for opposition and revolution.
Featured artists include: Monika Czyżyk, Yoshinori Niwa, Julie Perini, Weronika Wysocka, Lou Watson, Alek Sarna, Olga Dziubak, Daniel Kotowski and Léann Herlihy