Opening: 09.03.2013
In Jarosław Kozłowski’s most recent project, the intrusive buzzing and inarticulate gurgling of the media babble is reflected in the soundless passing of verbal slogans across standard flat-panel displays. With their recurring messages, the chaotically scattered displays visualize the media noise of stereotypes repeated over and over again. Just like the public media, these electronic broadcasts convey mental clichés present in language: POLES – POOFS – POVERTY, MAFIA – MAGGOTS, DEMOCRACY – DEVIATION. Snatched from public discourses, taken out of context, the endless words and phrases passing before our eyes reveal the persuasive rhetorics of media language.
Kozłowski previously analyzed the ambiguous role of the mass media in his Rhetorical Figures series (2006-2009) where, despite juxtaposing various media, such as newspapers and electronic displays, he refused them the capacity to communicate. The panels displayed a short text, ‘No news from…’, which was followed by a name of one of twenty three cities, ‘from Moscow to Johannesburg and Sydney’, reflecting the artist’s categorical opposition against the media brouhaha, the power and politics of the media, with their extremely politicized rhetorics.
Recycled News (2009), a work comprising hundreds of newspaper pages painted over with watercolours, asked crucial questions about living in the media reality. Coming from various parts of the world, the newspapers, regardless of their place of publication or political standing, were always framed in the same way, subordinated to an aesthetics of rhythms and repetitions, and, most importantly, always equally illegible. By covering entire pages with watercolours the artist not only questioned their credibility, but also exposed the aestheticization of the media. The concentration of multi-language titles, with its message of mass distribution of information, provoked questions regarding the limits of the mediatization of the contemporary experience of the world.
In his latest project, created specially for the exhibition at the State Art Gallery in Sopot, Kozłowski uses the contemporary technologies of mass communication in an equally wayward manner, transforming information media into means of conveying the ideologization and banalization of public discourses. In several earlier works, installing the LED-displays on building walls (Lublin, 2009), in streets and shops (Belgrade, 2006) or in exhibition spaces (Istanbul, 2010), Kozłowski presented them as media of non-infomation. In Everything Buzzes Except When It Gurgles, they become the media of disinformation and manipulation.
The artist, usually maintaining a distance towards the surrounding reality and opposed to any artistic declarativity, has for some time now been referring directly to the realities at hand. In European Standards (2009), he sarcastically quoted the language of the political, social and cultural standards in slogans embroidered on canvas tapestries. In his latest project, just as in works from several different Standards series, he adopts the position of an ironist who, as he says himself, ‘uses sarcasm, mockery or ridicule rather than patronizing or moralizing’. That which ‘buzzes and gurgles’ in the texts displayed on the panels has been subjected to declension exercises, written out to several dozen wall charts. Inflected for case or person, the various words become elements of a grammatical analysis. With his sarcastic sense of humour, Jarosław Kozłowski, a master of analytical reflection, of logical and linguistic games in conceptual art, turns the rhetoric of media language into the logic of its grammar.
Curator: Bożena Czubak
Jarosław Kozłowski is one of the leading conceptual artists and authors of artistic books, he also took part in the artistic movement Fluxus. During the 60s. and the 70s. considered one of the most consequential conceptualists Kozłowski has engaged in analytical reflection and linguistic studies as well as performance art. During the 80s. the artist began to create large-scope installations in which he took on board criticism of how art functions in society: among others, series of works devoted to de-mythologising art. During the 90s. and until the present time, Kozłowski has been the author of a number of spectacular installations in which he deals with problems of modernist traditions and the social and political context of art.
Born in 1945 in Srem. In the years 1963-1969, he studied painting at the State Graduate School of Visual Arts in Poznań (today the University of Arts in Poznań), where he has also taught (paiting and drawing) since 1967. In the years 1981-1987, he served as the academy`s rector. He has also taught at Statens Kunstakademi in Oslo (1992-1997), Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunste in Amsterdam (1992-2004), Academy Without Walls in Lusaca ( 1999, 2001),and at the Faculty of Pedagogy and Fine Arts of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (2005-2010). He is currently professor at the University of Arts in Poznań. In 1971, he initiated the NET project- an international artistic exchange. Between 1972-90, he founded and then ran the Akumulatory Gallery in Poznań, which presented the work of Polish and international avant-garde artists. In 1991-1993, he was programming curator of the gallery and collection of the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw. Fellowships with The British Council in London (1979) and DAAD Berlin (1984-85). He lives and works in Poznań.
Chosen individual exhibitions: Galeria odNowa, Poznań (1967); Galeria Foksal, Warsaw (1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1976); Galeria Krzysztofory, Kraków (1971, 1980); Galerie S:t Petri, Lund (1977, 1979); Galerie René Block, Berlin (1979); Galerie 38, Copenhagen (1979); Mattʼs Gallery, London (1980, 1982, 1986, 1990, 1996, 1999); Galerie Vor Ort, Hamburg (1980, 1982); Galerie Kanal 2, Copenhagen (1983); H.A.H., Copenhagen (1985); daadgalerie, Berlin (1985); Kastrupgardsamlingen, København (1985); Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (1986); Kunsthallen Brandts Klædefabrik, Odense (1989); Archipel, Apeldoorn (1989); Royal Le Page Building, Edmonton (1989); Kunstverein Giannozzo, Berlin (1990), Tapko, Copenhagen (1992); H.C.A.K. i The Archiv, Haga (1993); Muzeum Sztuki, Łódź (1994); Museet for Samtidskunst, Oslo (1995); Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Zamek Ujazdowski, Warsaw (1997); Muzeum Narodowe, Poznań (1997); Stadtgalerie, Berno (1997); The Arbaer Museum, Rejkjavik (1999); Dům uměni města Brna, Brno (2000); Kunstverein, Regensburg (2004); Emerson Galerie, Berlin (2005, 2007, 2011); Galeria Starmach, Kraków (2006); Galeria Le Guern, Warsaw (2007); Edition René Block, Berlin (2008); Bunkier Sztuki, Galeria Sztuki Współczesnej, Kraków (2009); Fundacja Profile, Warsaw (2009, 2012); Steinek Galerie, Wiedeń (2011).
He paricipated in numerous prestigious collective exhibitions, his works are located in many private and public collections.
