EXHIBITION CATALOG
The Prince and Queens is the most comprehensive exhibition to date devoted to the provocative works of Karol Radziszewski. It aims to present his multifaceted explorations that disregard established hierarchies, as well as the artist's distinctive , archive-based methodology, in which various cultural, historical, religious, social and gender references intersect.
The title of the exhibition ironically defines the three boundary areas of this project, based on the works of Jerzy Grotowski, Natalia LL and the art group General Idea - figures chosen by the artist to analyze concepts related to the body and identity: central themes in Radziszewski's work.
Karol Radziszewski is an eclectic artist who uses a range of different media in his practice: from photography to video, from painting to drawing, from film to performance. Referring to a variety of sources, he interweaves personal histories with social tensions, art history and queer approaches, Eastern European and American pop culture. The artist focuses on dominant narratives and their contradictions, their visions and the repression associated with them. Exploring the tensions between them, the artist creates complex works including photographs, texts, drawings, paintings, films, as well as re-performances, played out as bodily traces of "live" archival materials.
The exhibition gathers archives related to Jerzy Grotowski and Natalia LL and the art groupGeneral Idea, exploring the creative potential associated with these materials. Photographs, films, artifacts and memorabilia, juxtaposed with works created by Radziszewski, are meant to bring out characters and stories alternative to existing narratives.
The Prince (2014) is Radziszewski's latest project, an attempt to take a different look at the figure of the mythical director Jerzy Grotowski through the prism of his most famous actor, Ryszard Cieslak. For Cieslak, his role in The Constant Prince (1966) was a breakthrough in his acting development, and at the same time a clear example of how radical Grotowski was in his way of working with the body. Radziszewski reconstructs Cieslak's biography based on surviving fragments of performances, rehearsal recordings, letters and interviews. Using archival materials, the Prince is simultaneously improvised and acted out in order to blur the lines between historical facts and potential fantasies. As part of this project, Radziszewski also recalls Polish Thanatos, the last performance by the Laboratory Theater group, directed by Ryszard Cieslak.
The project America Is Not Ready For This (2011-2014) refers to the traditions of modernism and the neo-avant-garde. Here, the artist confronts both - Polish and Western - narratives regarding the history of art. Taking his cue from the subversive work of Natalia LL, Radziszewski raises a series of questions about issues such as gender, feminist art, conceptual art, queer and East-West relations, and their impact on the art world in the context of the Iron Curtain. America Is Not Ready For This is an open archive, a confrontation of the artistic experiences of Natalia LL and Radziszewski, and at the same time an attempt to examine the principles of positioning artists in the art world, both then and today.
The reference to the AIDS era (1989-1994) in the work of General Idea (an art group formed in 1969 by AA Bronson, Felix Partz and Jorge Zontal), creates a tension between their subversive practice and Radziszewski's project Kisieland (2009-ongoing), based on the figure of Ryszard Kisiel, the personality behind Central and Eastern Europe's first gay zine Filo, rediscovered by the artist. Photographs from Kisiel's archive, consisting of several hundred color slides documenting photo shoots organized by Kisiel and his friends in a private apartment, are a unique testimony to the early days of the AIDS epidemic.
These archival materials, a direct reaction to the anti-gay militia action Hyacinth carried out in Poland, are juxtaposed with the artist's usual strategy of appropriation, taking the form of editions, billboards, graphics, paintings, wallpaper, stamps and other media.
The juxtaposed collections of imagery, ideas and artworks, allow the artist to reinterpret, to show alternative meanings, presented in the form of process-oriented explorations, subjectively and subtly embodied, which is particularly evident in the strategiireenactment, referring to the very core of performance. The exploration of the value and use made of historical documentation aims to show - in a provocative way - the body as an archive.
Text: Eugenio Viola
Karol Radziszewski (b. 1980) lives and works in Warsaw, where he received his MFA from the Academy of Fine Arts in 2004. He creates interdisciplinary projects, working in the fields of film, photography, painting and installation. His activities also include publishing art magazines and books, as well as fashion and curatorial projects. Since 2005, he has been the publisher and editor-in-chief of DIK Fagazine. In 2009, he received the prestigious Paszport Polityki award as one of Poland's most promising artistic talents. Radziszewski's works have been exhibited internationally, in a number of venues including the National Museum, Museum of Modern Art, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw; Kunsthalle Wien; New Museum, New York; Cobra Museum of Modern Art, Amsterdam; Contemporary Museum in Wrocław and Museum of Art in Łódź. The artist's projects have been presented at several international biennials, such as Performa 13 in New York, the 7th Gothenburg International Biennial for Contemporary Art, the 4th Prague Biennial and the 15th WRO Media Art Biennial.
