Self- … | Michał Korchowiec

Artist

Michał Korchowiec

ABOUT EXHIBITION

„Self-…”

„That day my parents split up.” The words introducing us to the exhibition are like an introduction to the story; they intrigue, focus our attention, concealing many possibilities of continuation. The statement evokes an intimate mood and directs us to the universal plane of family relationships. The beginning of the narrative is accompanied by a film depicting the idyllic image of two young people on the beach. Splashing waves on the rocks, the carefree atmosphere clearly contrasts with the inaugurating exhibition in the opinion. The author, dispassionately shattering the family pattern in our culture, begins his story …
Michał Korchowiec is a 3rd year student of painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. The exhibition at Art Agenda Nova creates a closed cycle of works, the result of studies at the studio of Grzegorz Sztwiertnia and Zbigniew Sałaja. It is a non-intrusive story, presented with suggestive words and images. The whole creates a syntactic and at the same time ambiguous statement of the artist, full of various circumstantial evidence. Following their author, we face the possibility of any interpretation of performances – scenes from the life of the family.
The narrative started in the first room is continued by the films displayed on the televisions located in the room on the right. Installation made of home furniture, rugs and knick-knacks carefully placed on top of the receiver, provokes associations with familiar living rooms, wall unit and artificial flowers in a thick glass vase. The center of this space is the screen before which the family sits ritually. In this case, the image depicted in it does not follow the adventures of serial characters and iced stories from romantic comedies. Idealized reality is contrasted with fragments from family life. They do not constitute a specific story, but they create an impression of domestic rumor, recalling our completely subjective experiences. Pre-holiday bustle, stifling family meeting, incomprehensible grandfather’s stories. The artist does not try to suggest how to read our installation, he maintains a seemingly ambivalent attitude by giving a voice to our memories, impressions and associations.
The obvious indication is the work „Gift from the father” which we watch in the last room. The moving pictures move the broken finger – the title gift. Despite disturbing and unpleasant associations, it undergoes a somewhat ironic aesthetic. We can treat the photos as a comment of perceptible tension, which was depicted in the scenes appearing on television screens. They can also be the answer to the question arising in us at the entrance to the gallery. Why is the joyful fun of the siblings against the background of the sea with an emotionless statement about the end of the family?
The works presented in the gallery create an intimate family story, spoken in a calm, hushed voice, in which there is no lack of melancholy and repressed grievances. The title of the exhibition, discontinued in the middle, an unfinished word about the prefix „auto-” suggests not only the religious character of the work, but also the universality of the content conveyed in them – images that we remember as well, emotions that we felt. Watching them, we are forced to remember our own story, and the artist’s statement suddenly becomes our auto-story.

Coordination Piotr Sikora

Michał Korchowiec, born on July 22, 1987. They lived in Krakow.
From 2006 – Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, painting department, painting studio of professor Andrzej Bednarczyk, intermedia studio of Grzegorz Sztwiertnia and Zbigniew Sałaja.

Michał Korchowiec creates installations related to painting. He also deals with video-art, street-art (side stairs of Bunkier Sztuki in Krakow) and interdisciplinary arts.

Group exhibitions:
„Hungarian St.Art.” – September 2006, the space of the Hungarian street in Krakow

Individual exhibitions:
„Unnoticable view” – April / May 2007, „Spokój” Bracka 3-5 Krakow.
„Who gives and receives, gives and receives” – June / July 2008, Gallery Moho.

Other:
„Home” – October 2006, Cooperation on the Shahram Entekhabi project, building a „living space” for young artists. Square in front of the Bunkier Sztuki, Krakow.