Jurkiewicz | Pintal | Tagowska | Michałowska, “The Coordinate System”

A new exhibition at the Mieszkanie Gepperta gallery and the Szewska gallery as part of the “15% abstraction” series.

29.10-09.12.2021 r.
Galeria Mieszkanie Gepperta
Ofiar Oświęcimskich 1/2, 50-069 Wrocław

opening hours:
Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, 15:00-18:00
contact: fundacja@arttransparent.org

Due to the ongoing epidemic, prior registration is necessary: zapisy@arttransparent.org.

Galeria Szewska
Szewska 27, 50-139 Wrocław
opening hours: round the clock

photo: Małgorzata Kujda

The Coordinate System
Zdzisław Jurkiewicz | Przemek Pintal | Daniela Tagowska | Maria Michałowska

The Coordinate System exhibition continues a series of presentations confronting the oeuvre of the classics of Wrocław avant-garde with contemporary artists’ works. In the most recent instalment of the series, which has been carried out at Mieszkanie Gepperta for several years now, projects by Daniela Tagowska and Przemek Pintal enter into a dialogue with selected works by the late artists Zdzisław Jurkiewicz and Maria Michałowska. The exhibition revolves around Jurkiewicz’s archival photo collages and a graphic motif referring to the work of Michałowska. The event is a kind of tribute to these two outstanding personalities and their work.

photo: Małgorzata Kujda

The common denominator of the presentation is the four artists’ attitude to drawing and drawing-objects as a special and often intimate form of expression. Drawing as the most interdisciplinary, personal and adaptive medium constitutes an important point of reference in the creative, didactic and curatorial practice of Pintal and Tagowska. Since 2015, they have been coordinating the International Drawing Triennial and teaching Drawing and Intermedia at the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art and Design in Wrocław.

Similarly to Jurkiewicz and Michałowska, Pintal and Tagowska are privately partners, combining the presence of the art ethos with the need to create, which results in the constant overlapping of the private and the professional. The exhibition at Mieszkanie Gepperta therefore explores the mutual influences in the work of artists who are also life partners. The most important role, however, is played by certain similarities in the nature of their artistic experiments and the preferred means of expression, in which the chaos of quick lines clashes with the clearly structured and abstract thinking reminiscent of concrete art.

In spite of their seemingly light, sketchy form, Tagowska’s actions, corresponding to Michałowska’s work, are characterised by a kind of monumentalism. The symmetrical pseudo-armorial refers to physical culture and the murderous work of an athlete, which requires extreme precision to achieve perfect fitness. The metaphysics of the cult of the body, present in culture for millennia, disturbingly upsets Michałowska’s compact, transcendent and seemingly finite form.

photo: Małgorzata Kujda

The relation between Pintal’s intervention and the figure and work of Jurkiewicz follows in a similar vein. As Pintal himself explains, he refers not to Jurkiewicz the artist, but to “a guy with a big heart and unlimited imagination, a romantic boy, a rascal, a trickster.” Jurkiewicz’s focus on everyday objects and activities, his attention and tenderness towards plants and animals, and finally his interest in what is intangible, controversial and seemingly funny (e.g. UFO stories) culminate in Pintal’s poem Hope, in the form of scattered words and letters, thus unreadable.

The conversation continued in The Coordinate System concerns the smallest and the greatest things alike. In the tension between these two poles, it tries to capture and describe the effort that goes into achieving and maintaining form – whether literal and metaphorical, yet forever elusive.

Zdzisław Jurkiewicz
b. 1931 in Wolsztyn – d. 2012 in Wrocław  

To mark everything: floor, table, cloth, bottle, air, clock, bird… these will be traces of our existence as creators, the mere manifestation of a creative presence, of a persistently interfering presence.

From 1950 to 1956, Jurkiewicz studied Architecture at Wrocław Polytechnic. After graduation, he worked as a lecturer at the Department of Architecture, Painting and Sculpture of his alma mater. In 1996, he obtained the title of Professor of Fine Arts. As a member of the Wrocław Group, he participated in the São Paulo Biennale (1974) and represented Poland at the exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris (1983).

He was interested in architecture, painting, drawing and photography. He was also an art theorist and poet, considered one of the most interesting representatives of Polish conceptual art, although his practice far exceeded any attempts at classification or categorisation. His works are largely based on the notion of shape, treated as a non-finite object undergoing constant transformations. Zdzisław Jurkiewicz’s practice reflected his multifaceted interests, from mathematics and cosmology, to jazz and poetry, to the cultivation of rare plants and breeding rodents.

Maria Michałowska
b. 1925 in Brzeżany (now Berezhany, Ukraine) – d. 2018 in Wrocław

In 1951–1957 she studied at the State Higher School of Fine Arts in Wrocław. After graduation, she worked as a lecturer at the Department of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture of the Faculty of Architecture of Wrocław Polytechnic. In 1991, she was awarded the title of Professor. She was a member of the Wrocław Group, participant in the Wrocław ’70 Visual Arts Symposium and the exhibition Multimedia in São Paulo (1974).

She worked with painting, drawing and photography, creating spatial objects, installations and artistic actions. Author of texts on art, she is considered one of the first representatives of conceptual art in Poland. An insightful observer of everyday events which, when subjected to individual synthesis, became an inspiration for her art. In her works, she emphasised the very process of creation and the notions of time and space. As a painter, she worked mainly in the field of geometric abstraction.

photo: Małgorzata Kujda

Przemek Pintal
b. 1965 in Wrocław

Intermedia artist, painter, drawer. He is interested in studying the relationships between opposite phenomena at various levels of reality. Professor and Head of the Department of Drawing of the Academy of Art and Design in Wrocław; he runs the Drawing Studio, the Intermedia Action Studio and the Multimedia Studio. Curator of exhibitions and reviews, Programme Director of Wrocław Drawing Triennial for seven years. A regular guest at Zdzisław Jurkiewicz’s studio, often providing him with para-documentaries and films about UFOs. Jurkiewicz was a reviewer of Przemek Pintal’s habilitation thesis.

His recent research projects have mostly involved collaboration between artists from Poland and Japan. Together with Daniela Tagowska, he has been involved in projects and exhibitions such as Double Line, Limited Vision, Power Games, and the Polish edition of the international project TURN organised in cooperation with GEIDAI – Tokyo University of Arts.

przemekpintal.pl

Daniela Tagowska
b. 1985 in Wrocław

An intermedia artist working at the intersection of word and image. She often uses a minimalist sign on large-format canvases; equally often, she resorts to ephemeral drawing notation. Phenomena connected with the mythologisation of sport have been at the centre of her creative interests for several years. Her works have been shown at individual and collective exhibitions in Poland and abroad (including Germany, Japan, Great Britain, Estonia). Curator of exhibitions and artistic projects, in a duet with Fumihiko Sumitomo she prepared the Polish-Japanese exhibition Two Sticks as part of the International Drawing Triennial in Wrocław (2015). With Przemek Pintal, she has implemented a number of Polish-Japanese projects presented in Tokyo and Wrocław (including Double Line, Limited Vision, Power Games).

She is a lecturer at the inter-faculty, interdisciplinary MFA studies at the Academy of Art and Design in Wrocław, where she teaches Intermedia Drawing, Coaching and Facilitation of Creative Processes. Certified trainer (PCC ICF) and facilitator of creative processes, she specialises in developing art-related competences in artists and does research on the competence-related potential of art. Creator of the Submarine studio – a platform for interdisciplinary projects and workshops.

Instagram: @dy_tagowska

The project is co-financed with funds from the budget of the City of Wrocław.