Perfect Flaw
Exhibition Review
“Leaky boundaries between longing and control” – we read on one of Maja Warzecha’s collages… and this could well be where the review of her exhibition ends, if we take the young artist’s own style as a model.
Maja’s collages are seemingly simple assemblages of brief phrases, yet their true strength lies in the carefully chosen words, which, despite their sparseness, carry a tremendous weight of meaning and emotion. It is precisely this emotional sphere that is presented to the viewers in a way that is, on the one hand, very direct, and on the other, breaking the taboos of intimacy. Are we still looking at works of art, or are we reading the artist’s diary? Or perhaps the creator is simply skillfully playing with the viewer, shocking and provoking interaction… much like the Dadaists? The analogy with this avant-garde artistic movement is by no means accidental, as its creators often employed collage techniques and, just like Maja, developed the concept of the ready-made, that is, the “artistic transformation” of everyday objects. This was achieved through the artist’s will, their creative intention, and their deliberate choices.
By throwing out slogans and phrases, whose carriers are words taken from the headlines of colourful magazines, Maja Warzecha addresses deeply personal and unsettling topics. In her “poems” – for these are precisely the categories in which her phrases can be considered – we read about strength (“I will always keep my guard up, without guilt, without shame, with greetings from therapy”) and resignation (“enough, tomorrow, let it come by itself, without me, I don’t care”); about looking to the future (“I like all tomorrows in myself, all futures”) and a difficult reckoning with the past (“participating in the illness and dying of my mother, I feel beyond measure, it has a name, it is trauma, a strange invention that killed many and saved no one”); about courage (“careful, death will not do it for us, don’t run away”) and helplessness (“to be, and what if I don’t feel like it”). In other words, Maja writes about life and its dilemmas; she writes about everyday existence, using fragments of daily life as her medium – literally, because her works are made from pieces of ordinary, colourful press.
While touching on profound topics, she simultaneously plays with the simple, earthly form of her magazine works, aestheticising them through their expressive content. Her art is therefore a reckoning with motherhood (“I am a mother, supposedly yes, but I am a stranger, should I admit guilt?” or “this child comes from deep within you, speaks the language of your madness, is your DNA”), intimacy and relationships (“did I love him, gently and persistently, but in the end everything looked different, I said it was over, it ended with me feeling guilty”), but also questions future decisions and their rightness, expressions of longing, dreams (“I don’t deserve it, and now I think: maybe, why not?”), or perhaps a warning? (“less ambition, more gratitude”). With her words, she constructs in the viewer the image of a person alienated from their surroundings, partly by their own choice (“I realise I am a stranger, it is simply enjoyable”). This cultivated distance – both towards life and her own work – constitutes the true strength of the artist, who “floats in the clouds, consistently.”
Maja Warzecha
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On view: 4 - 30 September 2023
Exhibition closing event (finissage): 29 September 2023, 17:00
Własność Fundacji Teatroterapia Lubelska. Wszystkie prawa zastrzeżone.
Zrealizowano przy pomocy finansowej Miasta Lublin