ADAM KOZICKI, KASPER LECNIM, IRMINA RUSICKA – YOU KNOW WHAT HURTS YOU
Self-portraits in an expanded field - stories that can be shared and tamed. Resistance and persistence in the shadow of disasters and crises of various scales.
The exhibition entitled “You Know What Hurts You” features works which are new but still closely related to themes previously addressed by this and other artists. We will see paintings by Adam Kozicki as well as objects and photographs by Kasper Lecnim and Irmina Rusicka.
The exhibition is curated by Ada Piekarska and Aleksy Wójtowicz.
Aleksy Wójtowicz:
They say a melancholic is someone who is hurting without knowing why. Find the root cause and the pain will disappear? Nothing could be further from the truth. The pain never goes away, even if you know full well what is hurting you. As it happens, we were born at the beginning of the political transformation in Poland, and we have learned a simple lesson from the rap lyrics emerging in this part of the world – if someone hurts, it is usually because of the money or some irreversible changes in their minds. But the transformational turbo-thermo-modernisation has by no means chased away the melancholy, and the pains have not diminished at all since the emergence of the end of history.
In the exhibition You Know What Hurts You, Kozicki, Lecnim and Rusicka use sorrows and pains in their own style. In the trio’s art, the remnants of history are constantly at work: the saddest leaves in the world and superfluous people, rubble, tombstones and angry cars. Although they all seem contained now, there is still a fear that they will one day become a bone in the soft throat of progress, swelling, crawling and taking over. They are threatening but also useful – especially as material for new commemorations of resistance and persistence. Those that are soft, crooked, unheroic and yet much closer to the consistency of all the world’s ills and attempts to deal with them.
Adam Kozicki – Born in 1992, graduate of the Faculty of Graphic Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and of the Faculty of Painting. Degree under Prof. Jarosław Modzelewski and in the Spatial Activities Studio of Prof. Mirosław Bałka. Winner of the 3rd prize of the 45th Biennale of Painting Bielska Jesień (2021), winner of the Grand Prix.
Finalist of the 19th Hestia’s Artistic Journey. He is close to the idea of (post)art, in which social involvement is permanently combined with creative activism.
Kasper Lecnim – born in 1990. Visual artist, graduate of the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław. He works individually and in partnership with Irmina Rusicka.
In his career, he happened to produce scarves, organise removals, shovel snow, crash cars and challenge directors of cultural institutions to duels. He is represented by Galeria Szara.
Irmina Rusicka – born in 1990 in Włocławek. Visual artist, author of installations, videos and research works. Graduate of psychology and art history in the MISH programme at the University of Wrocław (2014) and Media Art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław (2017). She studied Media Art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw in the studio of Krzysztof Wodiczko and Prof. Grzegorz Kowalski (2016-2017).
In her artistic practice, she has bumped cars, repaired a motorbike, turned a cartwheel at the Mausoleum of Soviet Soldiers and raised money to make a hole in an art institution bulding.
She has participated in The New Dictionary of Old Ideas project (2019-2020). She lives and works in Warsaw. She is represented by Galeria Szara.
Ada Piekarska – Curator of exhibitions and projects at Galeria Bielska BWA, graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków and art history at the Polish Academy of Sciences. Author of texts, educator, activist.
Her curatorial practice includes exploring non-artistic functions of art.
Ada Piekarska, photo: Piotr Czyż
Aleksy Wójtowicz – art critic and historian, he writes about art and its environs in the form of visual culture, and occasionally curates exhibitions. Editor of SZUM Magazine, sewer diver of the Internet, fan of Kurt Vonnegut and Ken Russell.
Galeria Bielska BWA, Bielsko-Biała, ul 3 Maja 11
19 April – 2 June 2024 , upper room
You know What Hurts You
Artists: Adam Kozicki, Kasper Lecnim, Irmina Rusicka
Curators: Ada Piekarska, Aleksy Wójtowicz
Opening: Friday, 19 April 2024, 6 p.m.
