Find your match | Julian Tomaszuk

Artist

Julian Tomaszuk

ABOUT EXHIBITION

On her first presentation in the nova gallery, Julian Tomaszuk will show some of the latest projects. In his work, the artist discusses the subject of gender, interpersonal relations and identity. For a long time, he has also been studying sociological phenomena, especially crossdresing. The latest realizations of the young sculptor are spatial objects, amorphous forms illustrating authentic, online escorts. Inspired by online advertisements, the artist creates mutant sculptures, organs, with all their literal corporeality. The suggestiveness of the objects, emphatically emphasized by colors, exaggeration and exposure to public view, may arouse various reactions in the recipients. Perhaps this is because sex is „all-obvious and still central and closed canon. This intrusive, yet invisible norm of subjectivity determines the rules of social relations. In the face of rigorous code, each distinction or deviation becomes immediately visible, recognized and criticized. ”

The title of the exhibition, the slogan „find your match” is nothing but the desire to find your other half, partner or partners.
„Whether we like it or not, we have to reconcile ourselves (at least for now) with the fact of sex. Sex is sex, and sex is one of the motors that drive human activity. The basic law of biology, the source of human ups and downs, pleasure, passion and, at the same time, tragedy and frustration, „this statement is a starting point for Tomaszówek to evaluate the phenomenon of online interpersonal relationships. The virtual reality chosen by the author as a search area seems to be a mine of knowledge about the modern world. Anonymity provided by the Internet allows all its users to feel at ease so that they can express their needs, desires and longings without being embarrassed or controlled. Hence the not-so-beautiful side of human nature is often revealed. Tomaszuk does not avoid talking about it, does not cover up and does not embellish. The texts used in his works are authentic and retain their specific original form, and their titles are the pseudonyms of the authors. Tomasz’s work consists of three main parts: the text, the default person of the author and his visualization – each of them is transposed or exaggerated, thanks to which the whole on the one hand distracts attention from the purely erotic aspect, on the other punishes us to reflect on the prudishness of society, in however, such phenomena arise.

Tomasz’s works deal with the popular problem of promiscuity, that is, deprived of emotional ties of sexual contact with random, often changed partners. In primitive communities, promiscuity was typical behavior, preceded by primitive forms of marriage. Is the current phenomenon a perverse longing for pure primality? It turns out that the reasons are often in ourselves – in suppressed (or not) impulses, carnal searches, or finally in fear of loneliness.

At the occasion of the exhibition, it is worth considering the changes in gender issues in Polish art since the official appearance of this topic after 1989 and one of the first responses that the Antibodies exhibition in 1995 Tomaszuk, unlike artists from that period does not pose a problem of sexuality in a religious-social-post-totalitarian context; he looks at everything, trying to understand the mechanisms of human behavior in the context of commercialized eroticism reduced to the level of cheap kitsch available to everyone.
The exhibition can be viewed in the nova gallery until February 28.

Julian Tomaszuk
He was born in 1973 in Krakow. He deals with sculpture and design. In 1993 he graduated from the State Secondary School of Fine Arts in Krakow. In the years 1994 – 1999 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts at the Faculty of Sculpture. In 2000. he defended his diploma with Prof. Marian Konieczny. In the years 2002 – 2004 he was active in Silesia creating large spatial forms from post-industrial waste. Co-founder of the „Krowoderska 52” association, dealing with broadly defined artistic activities, spontaneous actions and experiment.
He is extremely creative, his work is very diverse in terms of subject and form – from classic sculptural realizations to monuments, installations, experimenting with matter and cybernetic forms in the field of applied art. As he says about himself: „I change all the time, I develop, I am looking for a formula of my own actions”.