25.08.2023 / at 18.00 / FOTO-GEN Gallery of the Center for Culture and Art in Wroclaw / Nankiera 8, 50-140 Wroclaw
Marina Abramovic, Janusz Bałdyga, Zhanna Gladko i Diana Lelonek - are the artists of the exhibition curated by Agnieszka Chodysz-Foryś Balance / Equilibrium.
The selected works refer to socio-political issues, the huge scale of inequality in almost every sphere of human life. The exhibition is a place of coexistence of elements with mythical symbolism, human struggle with the limitations of carnality, pain, awareness, trust and the lack thereof, the boundary between life and death, the imbalance in respect and care for the wider environment, where death and decay become the beginning, the fuel for new life.
There is a word - a safety valve, an apparent, false word, which is a smokescreen for widespread cruelty. It is "balance." The term is commonly used to define aesthetics and harmony, an ideal state of tranquility in which law and lawlessness, violence and goodness, power and powerlessness occur in equal proportions. The concept is considered crucial in diagnosing the causes of the world's destabilization, the loss of balance between technology and nature, culture and economy, profit and health, need and consumption, or information and freedom.
It is generally accepted that the pursuit of balance is a fundamental principle of the organization of human living space, and that so-called sustainable development, consisting of environmental awareness, anti-violence, rejection of the anthropocentric model, and efforts to develop democracy and social justice, is the basis of our existence. In contrast, loss of control and destabilization bring us dangerously close to self-destruction. But the problem lies in the fact that by using the concept of "balance," we are actually avoiding responsibility for the consequences of our gestures and decisions. We feed ourselves an illusion, entering an apparent comfort zone that never has a chance to realistically exist.
The word "equilibrium" - sonorous and soft-sounding - contains an enduring duality. Behind it is a constant battlefield, a fierce, brutal struggle on both sides of the duel, the goal of which is only (or as much as) the pursuit of the situation symbolized by the said term. It is a process, a permanent movement and a state of unattainable, although imaginable, but only on a macro scale, when the ruthlessness of the interaction of opposing forces is distant enough to blur into the conventional poetics of the term.
"Equilibrium," like other terms describing impossible states, by virtue of its indefiniteness allows only attempts to imagine and approach the unattainable place that hides behind it: the pure, stable and immovable point of the ideal balance of forces. It is a utopia, a dream completely abstracted from the conditions of the environment in which it could happen, which is in fact a false and crippled concept. It assumes immobility and multiple absence: of stimuli, of energy, of reaction; a state of affairs that is impossible in the familiar environment, which is always governed by synergy.
Assuming that it is thought that creates reality, and facing so many disasters and potential threats with global consequences, it raises the question of the condition of our collective responsibility and imagination. Are we imagining too seldom, or inappropriately affirming? To create (invent) reality, one must be aware of it. To have the courage to get close enough to it so that the blood is red, the war with its bestiality pours into our eyes, and the enrichment at the expense of the lives of the defenseless is called "exploitation" and not "diplomacy." If we had allowed ourselves this courage more often, we would also have fled more often in the opposite direction - thus, we would indeed be on the path toward balance.
The exhibition, entitled Balance is a reaction to the recent, not simple and dramatic, events in our socio-political space and the huge scale of inequality in almost every sphere of human life. The selected works address socio-political and sensual issues, as well as the issue of ecological balance. The exhibition is a place for the coexistence of elements with mythical symbolism, the human struggle with the limitations of corporeality, pain, consciousness, trust and the lack thereof, the boundary between life and death, the imbalance in respect and care for the wider environment, where death and decay become the beginning, the fuel for new life. The works presented are characterized, moreover, by direct references to war and the omnipresence in politics of hypocrisy, violence, ruthlessness, aggression, authoritarianism, inhumane behavior, barbarism.
Agnieszka Chodysz-Foryś, curator
You can read more about the exhibition at https://fotogen.okis.pl/wystawy/