Przemek Matecki & Pawel Susid
03 Feb - 03 Mar 2007
PRZEMEK MATECKI & PAWEL SUSID
Opening - 3rd February 2007 at 6 pm - 9 pm
The exhibition will be open until March 3rd
For the first time in Raster - we have the pleasure to present works by two outstanding painters:
Paweł Susid (born in 1952) and Przemek Matecki (born in 1976). Their meeting took place last year and was inspired by Dawid Radziszewski, who had organized an exhibition of their works in his Pies Gallery in Poznań. The current show in Raster takes that experience further.
Pawel SusidDue to its intellectual discipline and moral code, Susid's painting successfully evades all painterly trends. The artist has worked out an own philosophy of image which, by breaking off with the formal aspect of the 'painterly', explores the most crucial elements of contemporary art, namely: self-consciousness and a critical relation to culture and contemporary world. 'I paint pictures even for the second time, if they are nice' - says Susid, thus emphasizing the fact that the meaning is more important than the convention, and that the essence of changes lies in the process of understanding, not stylization. Susid expresses himself using painting-sentences which give an account of the process of observing art and life (both in their public and private manifestations), and include his views on the world as well as bitter remarks concerning his own weaknesses. In doing this, Susid is as contemporary as hip-hop and as classical as Malevich. While being an artist, an observer and a participant in the art scene, he is also one of the most important points of reference for painters and critics of the young generation - a generation he examines with a penetrating skill and positive attitude.
One of such 'young men' is Przemek Matecki. Over the recent years, his art has matured far away from the huge decision centers and oases of luxury (life in Żagań, studies in Zielona Góra, work at a construction site in Warsaw), in order to bring about energy of a totally new quality. Taking as his point of departure death and excretions (also literally) of contemporary visual and material culture, Matecki produces painterly beings - paintings, objects and installations - representing the highest degree of sophistication. In his works, he combines press photographs and reproductions with a noble painterly camouflage - this makes him similar to some visionary jeweler, setting common stones in gold. Matecki's art has a radical and experimental nature, it is vulgar at times, it flirts with pornography and politics, only to (in a somewhat unclear way) win the forces of evil over to his side. Simultaneously, this art bears a peculiar and rare quality - an ability to revolutionize one's way of perceiving the reality and to reconstruct a 'better world' out of pieces of the one in which we breathe everyday.
The painting of Susid and Matecki shares a similar, rhetorical force which is used to challenge the culture, including its most down-to-earth manifestations. They share a specific, non-academic sensitivity to the painterly image and, at the same time, a counterculture energy which lets their paintings - constructed out of quotations, stencils, torn out press photos - live a real life, here and now.
Most of the works featured in the exhibition were made by the artists recently, including two site-specific pieces prepared especially for the Raster interiors.
© Przemek Matecki
Opening - 3rd February 2007 at 6 pm - 9 pm
The exhibition will be open until March 3rd
For the first time in Raster - we have the pleasure to present works by two outstanding painters:
Paweł Susid (born in 1952) and Przemek Matecki (born in 1976). Their meeting took place last year and was inspired by Dawid Radziszewski, who had organized an exhibition of their works in his Pies Gallery in Poznań. The current show in Raster takes that experience further.
Pawel SusidDue to its intellectual discipline and moral code, Susid's painting successfully evades all painterly trends. The artist has worked out an own philosophy of image which, by breaking off with the formal aspect of the 'painterly', explores the most crucial elements of contemporary art, namely: self-consciousness and a critical relation to culture and contemporary world. 'I paint pictures even for the second time, if they are nice' - says Susid, thus emphasizing the fact that the meaning is more important than the convention, and that the essence of changes lies in the process of understanding, not stylization. Susid expresses himself using painting-sentences which give an account of the process of observing art and life (both in their public and private manifestations), and include his views on the world as well as bitter remarks concerning his own weaknesses. In doing this, Susid is as contemporary as hip-hop and as classical as Malevich. While being an artist, an observer and a participant in the art scene, he is also one of the most important points of reference for painters and critics of the young generation - a generation he examines with a penetrating skill and positive attitude.
One of such 'young men' is Przemek Matecki. Over the recent years, his art has matured far away from the huge decision centers and oases of luxury (life in Żagań, studies in Zielona Góra, work at a construction site in Warsaw), in order to bring about energy of a totally new quality. Taking as his point of departure death and excretions (also literally) of contemporary visual and material culture, Matecki produces painterly beings - paintings, objects and installations - representing the highest degree of sophistication. In his works, he combines press photographs and reproductions with a noble painterly camouflage - this makes him similar to some visionary jeweler, setting common stones in gold. Matecki's art has a radical and experimental nature, it is vulgar at times, it flirts with pornography and politics, only to (in a somewhat unclear way) win the forces of evil over to his side. Simultaneously, this art bears a peculiar and rare quality - an ability to revolutionize one's way of perceiving the reality and to reconstruct a 'better world' out of pieces of the one in which we breathe everyday.
The painting of Susid and Matecki shares a similar, rhetorical force which is used to challenge the culture, including its most down-to-earth manifestations. They share a specific, non-academic sensitivity to the painterly image and, at the same time, a counterculture energy which lets their paintings - constructed out of quotations, stencils, torn out press photos - live a real life, here and now.
Most of the works featured in the exhibition were made by the artists recently, including two site-specific pieces prepared especially for the Raster interiors.
© Przemek Matecki