Exhibition: Shadow by Joanna Marcinkowska / Tomasz Kalitko / Dariusz Subocz
On view through April 10, 2022
The Kosciuszko Foundation: 15 E 65th Street, New York, NY 10065
The substantive shape of the exposition is based on paper artefacts. These objects are part of the collection of the Museum of Katyń – the Martyrdom Branch of the Polish Army Museum in Warsaw. The museum collection – the relics unearthed from death pits – comes from exhumation of the Polish prisoners of war executed by the NKVD in Katyn, Kharkiv and Mednoye. In 2019 in the Ars Veta studio in Grębocin the objects underwent conservation performed by Dr Dariusz Subocz.
The exhibition has a form of artistic installation addressing the subject of remembrance. A group of artists: Joanna Marcinkowska, Tomasz Kalitko and Dariusz Subocz, representing various languages of artistic expression, i.e. painting, drawing, graphic arts and photography, create together an integrated, spatial exposition which comprises several dozen works of art. Conservation, by its nature being a tool used to preserve memory, in this case became a starting point for the development of artistic narration.
In this artistic message, the artists highlight juxtaposition and contrast. Therefore, they talk about life and death, beauty and brutality – about abruptly stopped stories of the people, and also they show how life, which could continue, might have looked in different configurations. To achieve this, the exhibition uses such elements of artistic language as colour, rhythm and light, and blackness, absence and shade. The artistic form of the pictorial installation is a kind of tribute to the victims of the Katyn Massacre, at the same time being a universal narration about the topic of remembrance and the void left by those who passed away.
Figurative art, which the artists represent, consists in building compositions based on spatiality and perspective, and most importantly on light and shade. Several dozen artworks are presented in a scattered form. A small format of works, a multitude of details, and the manner of exposition provoke the viewer to approach and look at the presented scenes at close range. For the artists it is an important device affecting perception and understanding of the works, which is crucial to enter into a dialogue with the present world and the contemporary viewer’s perspective.
The exhibition was held under the patronage of The Kosciuszko Foundation, the Polish Army Museum, and the Katyn Museum.