Mala Gallery ZPAF-CSW, Warsaw, Pl. Zamkowy 8
January 4-28, 2000
JANUSZ SZCZUCKI - Multiple perspective. Mala Gallery, Warsaw, Poland, January 2000.
OTH conceptual and analytical art constituted the basis of the drawn up in the 70's art programme of the Mała Gallery. Janusz Szczucki who then belonged the group of active artists not only has been realising his own projects but was also animating art activities in the ZNAK Gallery in Białystok from 1973 to 1984.
His close contacts with Henryk Gajewski and energetic art circle of the Remont Gallery in Warsaw and later with Zbigniew Dlubak have had decisive impact on his work. This creative relations and a kind of art dialogue with Zbigniew Dlubak have been going on up to now. The proof of it is their common exhibition they held two years ago. *
Szczucki in spite of changes of the 80's did not yield to pressures of popular styles and stayed faithful to his searchings in the area of conceptual art. He exhibited rarely, only when he had something substantial to convey. He did not strive for popularity. He has been treating his participation in group shows as an opportunity to highlight some real problems while using simple means. His art is grounded upon an attempt to discover meanings that are hidden in relations between individual elements of a photographic picture. His work sometimes contrasted with false richness, lavishness and excessive expression of other artsists to dismay of beholders and critics.
The important element of the work of Janusz Szczucki maintains to be some consistency he has chosen at the begining of his way towards art. This is consistency of juxtaposing, sometimes confronting the basic elements of a picture and looking for latent and real relations between these elements that makes his art so attractive and credible.
Marek Grygiel
*Zbigniew Dlubak, "Malarstwo i fotografika" Janusz Szczucki,
"Relacje II" Galeria Arsenal, Bialystok, September 4-27, 1998
JANUSZ SZCZUCKI - Multiple perspective. Mala Gallery, Warsaw, Poland, January 2000.
JANUSZ SZCZUCKI - Multiple perspective. Mala Gallery, Warsaw, Poland, January 2000.
JANUSZ SZCZUCKI - Multiple perspective. Exhibition in Mala Gallery, Warsaw, Poland, Jan. 4th, 2000.. Photo Arkadiusz Sciechocki/GW
JANUSZ SZCZUCKI - Multiple perspective. Exhibition in Mala Gallery, Warsaw, Poland, Jan. 4th, 2000.. Photo Arkadiusz Sciechocki/GW
HE ROOTS of Janusz Szczucki's work are clearly defined - it is conceptual art of late sixties and early seventies. The artist does not present his works very often. He is faithful to a problem he is dealing with since ever and to his aesthetics - careful, restrained, almost sterile. The problem - relations between elements of a picture, between photographs making series of pictures or even between two photographers ("Common pictures") - sometimes was explicitly used as a title of exhibition, other times it was just there. His aesthetics and style furthers abstracting of these relations and demonstrates them almost tangibly.
The present exhibition is clear continuation of these investigations but at the same time it is in a way their end, it reduces the problem to absurdity - there is only one object left and relations refer rather to the parts of this object. None of these parts is distinguished because of its function or shape. The partition is done in arbitrary way, determined by the edge of film frame. The element which makes us to think about entirety of the object is the partition itself, strangely vibrating disparity caused by small differences of perspective in which particular parts have been photographed. Macro relations present in previous exhibitions have achieved micro scale - these partitions can be done in any place, between any two atoms of a chair, cardboard box or human body. And it is only up to us if we will want - by noticing invisible links - to save wholeness of what has been divided.
Krzysztof Wojciechowski
Janusz Szczucki at his exhibition's opening party, Mala Gallery, Warsaw, Jan. 4 th, 2000. Photo: K. Wojciechowski
Janusz Szczucki
born 1953 in BialystokLives and works in Bialystok. Member of the Union of Polish Art Photographers.
Previous exhibitions in the Mala Gallery:
1983 - Relations (landscapes)
1985 - Some Works for Andrzej (with T. Tuszko, D. Strynkiewicz, K. Wojciechowski)
1989 - Common Pictures (collection)
Opening of Janusz Szczucki's exhibition in Mala Gallery in Warsaw, Jan. 4th, 2000. Photo: K. Wojciechowski.
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