Identity Issues: Irena Kalicka, Zofia Krawiec, Mateusz Sarello, Marta Zgierska
Polish photography is at a crossroads. It has an identity issue. The decades-long
documentation of a national history as intricate as it is dramatic has rather unexpectedly found
itself out of step. There is no longer either a need or a duty to reinforce the cultural core or to bear
witness to heinous crimes and massacres, to heroic deeds and the blood, sweat and tears of
opposition. Even the simple gesture of snapping images of the changing world of predatory
capitalism seems to have been deprived of authenticity.
In this context, the nationalistic turmoil looks like a symptom of a more profound problem.
The Poland, Polish women, Polish men and Polishness captured in the photography of the past one
hundred and eighty years is as topical today as ever it was, but the focus of the young generation of
artists appears to have turned elsewhere. The change is also technological in nature, embracing
digital media and social media, which all of us are familiar with. It encompasses gender, as well. Yes,
indeed; that good old Polish photography was usually a man, dogged in the fight for Polishness and
for art, for what was important... nay, for what was of the essence! The modern Polish photography
is a young woman with a camera and an Instagram account, involved in what is close and personal,
but also human, concerning everyone and not only the Poles.
Just a decade ago, the women in Polish photography could be counted on the fingers of one
hand and, by and large, only one of them has achieved international success; Aneta Grzeszykowska.
She is one of the generation born in the nineteen seventies; in previous generations, Natalia LL and
Zofia Kulik scaled the heights, of course. Today, the list of award-winning female artists who have
successfully exhibited and been published is markedly longer and, even more significantly, most of
them are under thirty; Weronika Gęsicka, Anna Grzelewska, Yulia Krivich, Anna Orłowska, Joanna
Piotrowska, Wiktoria Wojciechowska, Justyna Wierzchowiecka, Magdalena Wywrot and, of course,
the artists invited to take part in the Riga Photography Biennial; Irena Kalicka, Zofia Krawiec and
Marta Zgierska.
When studying the latest Polish photography, the viewer is bound to be struck by the
departure from politics or, rather, the redefinition of the political in line with the formula of ‘private
is public’. Political agency is transferred to individual life, to everyday struggles with the body, with
the surroundings, with the nearest and dearest and with strangers. The photos document a process
of development, often a process which is either therapeutic or connected with therapy. The
relationality of these female artists’ art employs the potential of photography understood not so
much as a framed picture on a wall, but more as a platform for communication and the negotiation
of meanings. Who am I? What am I thinking? What do I long for? These are questions which the
artists are asking not only themselves, but also the viewer.
The aesthetics and redefinition of a work of art itself undoubtedly constitute another
distinctive characteristic. It is no longer the case that photography is analogue; it is more a matter of
it’s sometimes being analogue. Analogue is one of the layers which is subjected to transformations,
syntheses and sublimations. The work of art loses its contours, its beginning and end, in order to
become a process tightly bound up with the artist’s life and her biography. There is no need for the
image to be so very stable, either. It can be gently enlivened without that in the least meaning that it
ceases to be a photo. It can happen that the very process set in motion by photography is more
important than the final shots. Photography is performance art, discussion, commentary, therapy
and relationships and not merely an image.
Another distinguishing aspect of contemporary photography is thus the departure from the
indexical nature of the photographic image. Anything and everything can be constructed, processed,
changed and staged. The limit for photography is no longer reality, let alone Poland; now, it is the
female artist’s own imagination.
Participants: Irena Kalicka (PL), Zofia Krawiec (PL), Mateusz Sarello (PL), Marta Zgierska (PL)
Curators: Adam Mazur (PL)
Organizer: Riga Photography Biennial in cooperation with Cēsis Exhibition Hall and Municipal Agency Cēsis Culture and Tourism Centre
Image: Marta Zgierska, Mateusz Sarello. Garden III