Wojciech Gilewicz at Foksal Gallery

http://www.galeriafoksal.pl

Wojciech Gilewicz's current exhibition at the Foksal Gallery, his second here, differs vastly from what he has accustomed us to in his previous work. The show comprises paintings created for earlier projects; however, this time he presents them as wholly abstract works, removed from the context in which they originally appeared as realistic painted reproductions doing duty for elements of the surrounding world. In general, they imitated fragments of the walls and windowsills of buildings, or masqueraded as paving stones. They could only be found with the help of a special map, prepared by the artist himself. So perfectly did they meld with reality that they remained completely invisible to the uninitiated viewer. Gilewicz's work to date has been a junction, a meeting place for painting, photography, installations, and videos documenting his artistic actions. The final work was a fusion of numerous elements, acquiring significance only within the context of the whole, even when transferred to the setting of a gallery's interior. This was what happened with the show which Gilewicz prepared for the Foksal in 2005. The work fused painting, photography and reality; a view from a window in the gallery. The pictures inside the gallery, three irregular figures, had to be read in conjunction with the photographs presented alongside them. They showed three canvas stretchers in the park, before painting, and after, along with a view of the park from the gallery window. Now Gilewicz goes a step further. He deprives his paintings of context, imposing the constraints of artistic form on them. It no longer matters whether the works first functioned against the urban fabric of Warsaw, Sanok or Paris, or whether they once became a part of the New York metro, Warsaw's Zachęta National Gallery of Art or Ukraine's Ivano-Frankivsk Museum of Art. What matters now is their independent existence, the paintings and the paintings alone. What new meanings do they acquire? Set against the backdrop of painting's entire tradition and the history of that medium, how do they speak to us? And finally, does Gilewicz's work provide simple answers to these questions? Or does it also provoke us to further reflection?

Born in 1974 in Biłgoraj. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan (1994-1996) and then in Warsaw, where in 1999 he earned a degree in painting (with an additional degree in photography) A painter, photographer, author of installations and videos. Lives and works in Warsaw and New York.