SUNDAY, APRIL 4, 2010

I saw her through the foggy café window; a charming young blonde with scintillating blue eyes and the most infectious smile. And what is this? She is smiling at me? Well, I mustn’t be rude. Surely I should go in there, and sit by her. And hey, if she just happens to be, like, a photographer or something, perhaps I should interview her.I opened the door to the stuffy, bustling interior of the Atlas Café, and walk over to the table where she has already spread out her MacBook and various books of her work. We shake hands, saying how nice it is that we should finally meet each other. Without as much as a word, I pull out my handy-dandy voice recorder and we get right down to brass tacks. Imagine that! Almost as if this whole encounter were planned! OK, so it was. I came here knowing all the basic facts about her. Monika Wiechowska, Polish photographer. But why would all this be arranged if not to know more? The first five minutes already yield some useful information: In a room stuffed to the gills with the usual array of Nouveau-Williamsburgites, she is one of the only people without a faux-surly look plastered on her face, and by God what a cute sense of fashion she has! And the funny thing is, she looks exactly as I imagined. Fine, I added her on Facebook, and Poland doesn’t exactly have a shortage of blue-eyed blondes anyway. But it’s more than that. As our conversation draws on, I realize Monika is kind of like her photographic work, at least some of it. At first glance, she is an absolute doll, smiling and full of youth. But there is a seriousness about her, too, which makes her all the more intriguing. (Trust me, you’ll see what I mean in just a bit!)

Monika grew up in Poland, and was 15 when Communism ended. Having myself been raised in a Russian Jewish family who lived under a Communist regime, all I’ve heard all my life was how miserable and awful it was. Interestingly, Monika reveals some of the other aspects of that life: “I, and I think a lot of Polish people have nostalgic feelings for those days. Life was hard, but at the same time it was very creative, and people were sharing eachother and living together.

I remember going out with my parents to visit friends, and we had to stay for the night because you could not be out on the streets after 10, so a lot of people would have parties until the early morning hours. My mother was an artist, so I was always in this semi-Bohemian circle. I remember it as being very fun….Growing up, we had to queue for bread and butter, but people were still making and creating. The best books were written, and the best films were made. I think the restrictions in the system actually made people create things that were extraordinary.”Still, one thing differentiated Monika’s experiences in Poland from that of most others. Because her father was the captain of an Amsterdam-based ship, she had the rare opportunity to travel outside the USSR. One visit led her to the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. “I think they were curious to have someone from Eastern Europe attend the school. Nowadays they probably don't care because there are so many people going back and forth.” She was not initially a photographer when she entered. “I wanted to be a graphic designer, because I was always very interested in Polish graphic design from the 70's. We had amazing designers like Henryk Tomaszewski so I thought, ‘Let's revive it’… I started making designs using images, and they started paying more and more attention to my photography which I wasn't really studying, I was only using it as a medium. Slowly by slowly, I would go to photography teachers and finally I graduated from the graphic design school presenting only photographic works.” She then landed a spot at a two year residency program at the Rijksacademie where she honed her skills as a photographer (which friend and fellow upstART artist Hans Broek had previously attended). She would for next 12 years of her life live in Amsterdam, yet Poland was, and continues to be a crucial part of her work.

Much of Monika’s work has to do with childhood memories and a longing for the past, viewed in a way that is at once comfortably familiar and freshly conceived. There is an ongoing motif of recognizable parts of a Soviet childhood. “Mushroom Hunting” shows a classic activity for Soviet families to do after the late summer rains. I myself can almost smell the wetness of the forest, and the sweet musk that my mother tells me indicates an edible shroom. Despite her urban lifestyle, Monika is “definitely a nature girl,” in her words, as seen in these gorgeous pictures(This one in particular reminds me of Jurgen Teller's photographs of Japan, which Monika and I share a great fondness for!)

Another series of images was taken on a deer-hunting trip with her father. They appear to portray death through the fascinated gaze of a child, who still hasn’t grasped its finality.

They are at once beautiful and morbid, and convey the hidden darkness of Monika's work. Something that was once teeming with life is shown in a state of death and decay, yet photographed in a way that seems to capture the lithe sprightliness of how it once was.

The desire to not only capture, but reevaluate her childhood would come into fruition during a spur of the moment trip to another former Soviet satellite. “I went to Georgia with a friend from there. We were looking through an old family album, and I came across photographs that could have been taken in Poland…Georgia in the 70's basically looked the same as in Poland— We even had the same cups and utensils because they all came from Russia. That was really striking, and I thought I should go and see what it's like now, because the transition took much longer in Georgia.

I thought I would find the past here in the present, still there." Even though the memories are uniquely Monika's, the feeling of nostalgia is very palpable. It is as though the viewer is at once bewitched by the charm and familiarity of the surroundings, while disheartened by how much they have changed. Indeed, she concedes, "I'm not sure if I found what I was looking for, but I found something else."

When asked if she actively avoids or embraces the label "Polish Artist," she answers "I don't avoid it. I never hide my origin. I'm also not putting a label. Some artists intentionally use Poland to help them get attention and I think a lot of times when Polish art was a hype, it help them a lot. I'm somewhere in between." While there are recognizably "Polish" or "Soviet" elements, they do not overwhelm the photos, or make the mood of remembrance any less apparent to those who did not grow up in those particular circumstances.

"One of the things that fascinate me about photography is the ability to trick the viewer. If you frame the image a certain way and leave the details out of the picture you can present an object or a landscape or a person in a different light or manner. Some people wouldn't even know what they are looking at."

"Under the Bed is a very simple example. The image is cropped, so all you see is this never-ending corridor. A lot of people didn't even know it was under a bed." (Count me in as one of those people!)

Untitled, Bronx Zoo, 2007 Landscape 5, Hoover Dam, 2007

What makes this all the more intriguing is the spontaneity with which Monika takes pictures. The only thing that is planned beforehand is the location. From there, like a curious explorer, she simply sees what she can find. "But the reason was very clear. I just would go there and work in that context. I always have to have a margin for happy accidents."

The photographic series by Monika Wiechowska was created a year ago in the United States of America. The artist was on residencies there, to shortly thereafter settle permanently in New York City. The pictures seem to document her gradual submergence in the (chiefly urban) landscape of the United States.

The photographic series by Monika Wiechowska which are presented at Kordegarda was created a year ago in the United States of America. The artist was on residencies there, to shortly thereafter settle permanently in New York City. The pictures seem to document her gradual submergence in the (chiefly urban) landscape of the United States. The image they create is utterly subjective, marked by the author's sensitivity and life experience. We will not find postcard images here like the Statue of Liberty or the 'Hollywood' sign in Los Angeles, instead, Wiechowska is interested in 'no-go' neighbourhoods, forgotten areas (Coney Island, New Jersey) whose time has passed, even though its traces are still to be seen here and there; untypical images of well-known cities which, were it not for the hint offered by the title, we would probably not recognise.

Most of the pictures are from New York City. The "Calvary Cemetery" diptych shows the New York skyline as seen from the huge cemetery in Queens. Tombstones in the foreground, and behind them the Manhattan skyline. Calvary is the largest and at the same time one of the oldest of New York's necropolises - there are many ornately sculpted tombstones there. Wiechowska captures its poorer section, situated closer to the highway - the tombstones are simpler here, but disturbingly similar in form to the skyscrapers in the background. The method of representation used gives the picture a vanitas-style quality. The double image further emphasises a sense of visual and metaphorical symmetry.

Wiechowska employs a similar measure - showing a familiar city from an unfamiliar perspective - in "Landscape #11 (Mulholland Drive, Los Angeles, California, USA)" , giving the viewer a unique opportunity to see L.A. through the eyes of the main character of David Lynch’s cult classic Mulholland Drive.

Another picture captures a Queens neighbourhood, Flushing Meadows, where the famous US Open tennis tournament takes place. Again hardly a bombastic vista, as if from out of reason - a snow-covered landscape looming blurrily beyond a thick glass wall.

"Landscape #2 (Bronx ZOO, New York, USA)" takes us to another 'no-go' area, Bronx. Winter, a picturesque view, a wrecked fence, and beyond it a fragment of an aviary. The complete absence of either people or animals gives the picture an eerie feel. Another part of Bronx, Sheridan Avenue, was photographed by the artist at the same time of year. We see walls of shabby buildings, and in the foreground an escarpment with wild vegetation covered by bizarre icicles. The viewer’s contemplation of these beautiful natural creations is disturbed by the question, emerging from subconsciousness, about what kind of disaster brought them into existence.

The lushness of vegetation in the centre of a big city and the traces of decline evident in architecture heighten an effect of unease and alienation. The artist has chosen to blow up this picture to the size of one of Kordegarda's side walls. The sheer scale of the representation makes an impression on the viewer, and the interior's architectural divisions additionally frame it, heightening the tension. Opposite this picture referring to history and the eternal conflict between culture and nature, Wiechowska has placed a like-sized photograph entitled "Landscape #5 (VLA, New Mexico, USA)", showing a huge antenna-telescope amid a harsh desert landscape. We do not know whether this is a futuristic vision of Earth communicating with alien civilisations, a robot-controlled post-catastrophe world without cities, or perhaps a Moon probe? In her American wanderings the artist got to New Mexico, where she photographed the Very Large Array astronomical observatory in the desert, a fulfilment of a highly disturbing future myth (futuristic/technicised nature). "Landscape #9 (Fragment of Hoover Dam, Nevada, Arizona, USA)" conveys a similar mood - evoked by a contrast between a huge technological construction (which seems deserted) and the power of pure nature.

The third picture chosen by the artist to be blown up gives us a better understanding of the idea of this exhibition. The image of snow-covered garden partitioned by the ornament of a frosted fence transports us to the unreal world of a winter tale. Is this non-central New York again or perhaps some provincial town in the Midwest? And again the title reveals the truth - it is Szczecin, the artist's home town. The incorporation into the photographs of subjective elements, borrowed from the private (sometimes intimate) sphere, and their juxtaposition with the evident, indifferent, subject to public scrutiny, characterises Monika Wiechowska's creative method. Her pictures are never impartial or stylised documents. The artist photographs the extant reality, but her pictures tell stories, speaking about that which is beyond the frame, discovering related (universal) stories recorded in the sceneries of New York, Los Angeles, Szczecin; or Georgia (the country) and Chorzów, where she worked earlier.

Wiechowska recently showed a selection of pictures from the series in question at the Galerie Fons Welters in Amsterdam under the title When the blue moon rises, an allusion the 'once in a blue moon' idiom denoting extremely rare events usually preceded by a dramatic prologue, as unusual as a blue moon visible after a volcano eruption. Of similar mysterious and beautiful phenomena speaks the artist's exhibition at Kordegarda, presenting pictures from the North American series in a new selection and arrangement. The sense of vague unease arising from communing with the mystery or history present in these succinct photographs will surely accompany the viewer too.

According to folklore, a ‘blue moon’ smiles down on everything that it illuminates, while at the same time softly speaking to it. A blue moon is also a rare astronomical phenomenon. Monika Wiechowska appears to be using both these meanings in her solo exhibition at Galerie Fons Welters, and through her choice of focus she highlights the unnoticed, placing it in a new, undefined narrative.

Against a strange, almost surreal background, we see three birds. The trees look real, but the background displays a painted, unearthly forest in a typical atmospheric perspective. Trying to grasp what is shown here, we ask ourselves ‘where is this, and what is going on?’ The Bronx Zoo, New York is the answer, but this answer becomes redundant as soon as it is uttered. What is represented here no longer matters, since the image itself has become the subject of its own reality.

The photographs exhibited by Monika Wiechowska appear to provide insight into the way she works with the medium. The cohesive element here is not the subject or genre, but the way in which the images are produced. Through a free, uninhibited, inquisitive gaze, part of the world is framed and packaged to produce a new reality in which the viewer sees things for the first time. From a perspective as low as a child’s gaze, for instance, we see two deer grazing in a garden surrounded by decorative lights. Just briefly, a mysterious, fantasy world comes into being, but a moment later the deer regain their plastic structure and the setting becomes just a garden in a suburb of New York. Now we are no longer looking at a snapshot of the photograph’s subject, but at an extension of the time in which the real and artificial, past and present, interact. The result is a double, carefully chosen image that goes beyond what is displayed.

Monika Wiechowska seems to be showing us ‘found places’. Sometimes a city scene, sometimes a landscape, sometimes an interior, but in each case the image shows a distinct interaction between the everyday and her view of it. Her specific way of looking is partly a product of her quest for places from the past, whether drawn from memories of mental images or from the place’s history. The meditation of the camera restores, as it were, a lost utopia. This same way of looking can now also be used for everyday, common places. Through this conscious illumination, a complexity is revealed that shows how reality can be something else. When the blue moon rises, a transformation becomes visible in which something is lost and something is found.

From the exhibition When the blue moon rises..., Fons Welters Gallery, Amsterdam, 2007

www.fonswelters.nl

The exhibition will consist of a video installation titled "PRZEZROCZYSTOSC" / "TRANSPARENCY" by Anna Konik and a series of photographs by Monika Wiechowska.

[...]

Monika Wiechowska pays special attention to the composition of her photographic images. She studies the codes of the medium of her choice and uses these codes to build mysterious cultural links that refer the perceptive observer to the abundant iconography of art history. Simultaneously, in her works she manifests a very subjective attitude towards reality as well as a candidness bordering on exhibitionism. This combination of private intimacy and aesthetic tradition allows her to generate a distance that makes Wiechowska's photographs intriguingly ambiguous. Approximately thirty photographs have been selected for this exhibition at the CCA. These include both the artist's earlier works and new images that have never been shown in public. The artist's most recent images derive from a recent visit to country of Georgia in the Caucasus. They depict mystifying, deserted towns and dilapidated homes that show signs of past splendor, emanate nostalgia as well as an odd timelessness. The artist's impression was that these sites existed outside of any specific time. This reminded her of other places and emotions. As a result, she proceeded to juxtapose her Georgian images in this exhibition with photographs she had taken earlier. The result is a singular kind of narration, a voyage through numerous layers of individual memory.

Kobieta jest olbrzymia. Ręka podpiera głowę, a głowę zadarla. Uśmiecha się. Blond włosy rozsypały się dookoła głowy jak aureola.

Jest to akt i autoportret jednocześnie. Patrzymy i wzrokiem obmacujemy wystawione na widok ciało. Jak na… wystawie. Olbrzymie rozmiary (6 x 3 m) sprawiają, że nie sposób od niego uciec. Nie sposob ominąć go wzrokiem Udac, że się go nie widzi.

Nie ma tu gry że spojrzeniem. To widz jest „winny”. To widz sie wstydzi i dręczy go zażenowanie nagościa artystki. Doznaje ambiwalentnych odczuć: fascynacji i poczucia winy. Mimo rozmiarow, fotografia jest zaskakująco intymna. I dlatego kusi i odpycha, wywołując wrażenie, że widz jest nieproszonym gościem, przed którym zapomniano zamknąć drzwi.

Modelka i artystka kieruje na siebie wzrok widzów, przyciągając go i wystawiając sie na niego. Sama jednak swego wzroku odmawia. Oczy ma przymknięte. Twarz jest w ekstazie, onanistycznej, autoerotycznej rozkoszy. Bo nie ma tutaj innego niż modelka zródła tego stanu. Tylko rozespana, pogrążona w sobie i w marzeniach kobieta, podmiot i przedmiot obrazu w jednej osobie. Granica między nimi została zniesiona. Jest kobieta, leżąca na kanapie, podająca się jak na tacy, ale nieuchwytna.

I leży tak na tej skórzanej sofie apetycznie biała, posągowa jak bogini, która niewinnie rozchyla uda, i spokojnie kładzie dłoń obok łona. Na myśl przychodzą takie obrazy jak Danae czekająca na potoki złotego deszczu lub Kalliope w objęciach chmury. Tylko Zeusa brak. Nie ma deszczu, promienia światła czy mgły. Dokonuje się więc zaprzeczenie meskiej zasadzie przyjemności, jaką ma dawac obraz. Wzrok ślizga się po powierzchni, ale nie moze wniknać w ciało. Mimo, ze jest królem zmysłów, i ustanawia silne relacje władzy, to autorka wyzywa go na pojedynek. Wydaje się prowokować: „patrz ile ci sie podoba, a i tak nie będziesz mnie miał”. W efekcie zmusza go do odwrotu. Wzrok zaczyna pełnić rolę… dłoni, która stara się gładzić jedwabiste ciało zdjęcia.

Zdjęcie nie daje się ogarnąć jednym spojrzeniem. W tym też widać pułapkę dla wzroku. Bo skoro nie można ogarnąć, to i nie można zawładnąć. W kawałkach, z bliska, bez proporcji – w ten sposób widzi się ciało kochanka czy kochanki, w miłosnym zbliżeniu, o czym pisze Octavio Paz. Nastepuje dezintegracja pożądanego ciała, niektóre jego elementy potwornieją, inne w ogóle znikają, zasłoniete górami brzucha, bioder czy pleców.

Ta kobieta o mlecznej skórze i jasnych włosach pełna jest radości, która płynie z niej samej.

Nie jest już przynętą, łatwym łupem, branką do wzięcia z każdym spojrzeniem, towarem na targu niewolnic. To ona łapie widzów w pułapkę i puszcza niezaspokojonych, z rozbudzona żądzą. Pożądanie się wzmaga, obraz daje przyjemność – do czasu.

Według Kennetha Clarka, aktem nie jest każde przedstawienie nagiego ciała. Akt to ciało pokazane według pewnych reguł, wyidealizowane. Można powiedzieć, mięso wtłoczone w ramki, golizna „ubrana”. Zdjęcie Moniki respektuje wiele z tych zasad. A więc ciało o dobrych proporcjach, kobiece, nieowłosione, czyste, bez widocznych związków z fizjologią, biologią, mięsem. W przewrotny sposób potwierdza się tutaj tradycyjny podział na kobiece i męskie. To znaczy kobieta jest bierna...

Ale tylko pozornie. Pozornie Monika jest w zgodzie z tradycyjnymi sposobami przedstawiania – kobieta jest pokazana jako leżąca, a to otwiera wielką mnogość skojarzeń związaną z pierwiastkiem żeńskim. Kobiecość – bierność, czyli ziemia, czyli pejzaz, czyli natura. Tymczasem Wiechowska ustawia swój wizerunek pionowo, co nadaje mu niepokojącą dwuznaczność. Kobieta falliczna. Ta, która siega po władze. Bierność i aktywność w jednym. Matka-ziemia, rodząca bogini, Demeter, ale i Afrodyta, Artemida czy Atena.

Sięga po władze zamykajac oczy. Jest naturalna, nie pozuje, swobodnie się śmieje. Jak już wiemy, jest i adresatką, i obiektem spojrzenia. Bo pierwsza na siebie popatrzyła. Spojrzała miłosnie. Myślę, że podczas pozowania zapomniała po co tu jest, po co leży naga w niewygodnej pozie i jest jej zimno. Przestała zwracać uwage na aparat fotograficzny. Dlatego zdjęcie robi tak silne wrażenie. Bezwstydne w swojej niewinności. Każdy przy olbrzymce czuje się intruzem. Sliniącym się starcem przy pięknej Zuzannie, która nie wie, że powinna się ukryć.

Ale czy rzeczywiście niewinna Zuzanna? Samowystarczalna? Przecież ona najwyrazniej kusi, wabi i czeka. A kochankiem jest widz. Tutaj nie chodzi o relację posiadania, zawładnięcia, pana i niewolnicy. Tutaj do głosu dochodzą zmysły, dochodzi żar pożądania spalający jakiekolwiek hierarchie. Jej ciało otwiera sie jak w najintymniejszej chwili. Jak dla najbliższej osoby. Zaprasza. Ciało, nie ona.

Wśród zdjęć, ktorę Monika Wiechowska pokazała na dyplomowej wystawie w Rijksakademie w Amsterdamie, znalazło się więcej aktów. Wszystkie wykonane sa we wnętrzach, wszystkie cechuje ta sama intymność wynikajaca z samotnosci w domu. I napięcie wypływajace z pozowania nago – choć właściwie powinnam powiedzieć nie-pozowania, bo te akty zostały uchwycone w chwilach intymnych, w przelocie, przypadkiem, jakby podejrzane przez dziurkę od klucza. W wannie, przy łózku, na ręczniku. W ciasnej przestrzeni, pomiędzy sprzętami.

Było tam w ogóle wiele różnych zdjeć. Autorkę pasjonuje wiele tematów i dziedzin życia, z żadnej nie chciała zrezygnować. Więc zdjęcia lasu, miast, a także martwych natur, owocow i filiżanki, jakby żywcem przeniesione z obrazów.

Jest też zdjęcie rodziców. Dwoje ludzi, przy łóżku. Szare swiatło i cisza domu dookoła. Jest jeszcze jeden akt o nazwie Public Space Oddysey. Pojawia się on jako podświetlana tablica czy plakat w przestrzeni miejskiej, na ulicach. Roześmiana naga kobieta turla się po dywanie. Znów pojawia się wnętrze domu – i znowu jest to autoportret, ktory nie podejmuje gry spojrzeń, kobieta zamyka się na sobie i własnej rozkoszy. Ale z drugiej strony autorka-aktorka potrzebuje publiczności. Więc oswaja miasto, prywatne staje się publicznym. Przypomina mi się pewna kobieta z opowiadania Fiodora Sologuba, która na ulicy oddawała się każdemu mężczyznie, który się zgłosił. Aż umarła. Oczywiście, to nie jest przestroga dla Moniki, co raczej wskazanie, jak niebezpieczne bywa dla kobiety odsłonięcie własnej seksualności w sferze publicznej.

Najnowsze zdjęcia Moniki należa do serii eden. Bujna przyroda, rajskie paprocie, soczyście zielone trawniki. Widzimy też piękne mieszkanki ogrodów – sarny. Ale coś tu nie gra: zwierzęta leża. Podejrzewamy, że sa martwe, co trochę psuje arkadyjski nastrój zdjęć.

Aha. Zdjęcie olbrzymki nosi tytuł Ja.