Review

Review

Not by chance Katarzyna Januszko has chosen the desert as a place for her artistic project. Her involvement in this work ran parallel with the outbreak of the global pandemic,which put life on hold for almost two years. Defining ones place in the world and the idea of passage of time, are both closely intertwined andconveyed in her response to the desert landscape. The desert became aplace of inspiration because the artist spends a lot of time in thisparticular landscape. Regular stays at her home on the Sinai Peninsula, aplace which is symbolic and biblical. The famous monastery of St.Catherine, situated on a mountain site – where the burning bush isbelieved to be located – brings forth reflections about the transienceand material illusion of our earthly existence.Thedesert is meditation, it requires constant effort in over- comingendless spaces. It also has associations with the passage of time; likegrains of sand blown by desert winds which come from the sea. Throughoutthe centuries, the desert has also been connected with movement,testified and witnessed by the nomadic lifestyle of the Bedouins.Althoughshe grew up in Great Britain, Katarzyna Januszko has spent substantialperiods of her life on the African conti- nent. Long stretches of timewith her parents, who lived and worked in Africa for many years. Hercurrent winter home on Sinai allows her to maintain regular contact withthis culture whilst being in relatively close vicinity to Europe.Apermanent element of the desert landscape are caravans, where camelshave always accompanied people, animals which have adapted like no otherto extreme survival condi- tions. Camels are magical animals thatfascinate the artist. As the result, in the staged photographic worksthe bones of these animals appear. They were especially laboriously pre-pared for this occasion. Their whiteness stands out from the rockyground.Thedesert in this region is not merely a vast plain – as it is elsewhere –but has elevations and rocks in various shades and colours. The bonesact as important, symbolic elements. They are juxtaposed with her nudefull-length portraits and remain after the photo session mostly takenback to the burial ground and in this act, as it were, „given” back tothe desert. It is a planned and well-thought-out ritual, that is anintegral part of this project. Bones appear here for a reason, as theyhave a dramatic reference to the circumstances and trauma the authorexperienced as a result of a serious caraccident.The juxtaposition of these animal remains with the fragility of thebody and the immensity of the desert landsca- pe’s cosmic space, can beseen as part of so-called Land Art.Atthe same time, bones are one of the most durable ele- ments of pastlife, genetic research is carried out on their basis, even fromprehistoric times. They somehow represent an indestructible force, hardto burn, difficult to grind, and resistant to decomposition. So theycarry the archetypal strength of survival against all odds.Theynot only appear in a series of photos taken in the desert, but alsogain the status of especially displayed objects, enabled by using a 3Dprinter to faithfully reprodu- ce them. It is worth noting here that allthe photographs were taken with an old German Dacora camera,on a wide frame film. Some of the prints were made in a darkroom by theartist herself, and larger formats were printed on a spe- cially chosenwatercolour paper; consequently giving the work a unique value andenhancing the archival quality of the photos.Anadditional element enriching this desert-ontological pro- ject aresmall, original maps printed on silk. They concern areas of the desertin North Africa and were used by British troops during World War II.Preserved in very good condition from her family collection, they becomea metaphorical re- cord of a journey to places in climate and latitudesimilar to the spaces in which the author currently resides.Theentire inventory of media used by Katarzyna Januszko emphasises theconcept of survival under even the most difficult conditions. The workwhich is executed using tradi- tional techniques; photographic recordson archival media, symbolizes attributes of durability, the aspects ofstrength in objects that are difficult to destroy. A strong statementcom- bined with a conscious effort to face the fundamental issue ofsurvival.Inthe face of unexpected threats, which life does not spare us in thisincreasingly difficult time, on a more and more exploited and torturedEarth. Juxtaposing the body with such indestructible elements from thepast – with the desert’s, raw, eternal landscape, allows for in-depthreflection over our fleeting presence in the universe.Sand and rock will remain, when we are gone.

Marek Grygiel



The artist uses graphic techniques to make her large-size works. Found steel elements are covered with paint and used as matrixes against which thick sheets of soaked cellulose are pressed. Extra colour is then added, including with an ordinary brush.

The works are made in production facilities, where you can find offcuts left from the process of sheet-cutting and press-carving. The first thing this brings to mind is the memory of communist-rule Poland, the coarse PRL, where the various post-industrial elements where used to make fences or gates that pleased the eye with the randomness of the material they were made with. They were being read, interpreted. You tried to guess what the Big Machine had made them for in the first place. They were always too heavy, too powerful for their newfound function. That excess mass, excess weight, and the randomness of use transformed into a kind of suburban aesthetic of that “peripheral diluvium” that had always appreciated the recycling of things discarded by the higher levels of the social ladder, and of industrial waste.

The artist consciously repeats that gesture, elevating the mechanical codes of her visual matrixes to a symbolic dimension. She is aware of our tendency for seeing everything in a symbolic way, expressed in binary oppositions, sometimes their unity, in contrasts of the complete with the incomplete, the dynamic with the static. She confines herself to found, selected forms. She uses them to compose autonomous objects that engage in a dialogue with not only our aesthetical tradition but also the civilisational one – the axiomatic supremacy of technology over other forms of culture. Both are treated here in a way that falsifies each of them. We are having to do here neither with important signs organising our communities, nor with an apology of technology. The artist chooses splinters of complex processes. She deliberately narrows down the repertoire of used forms to open us to our own interpretations, the effort of searching, of creating the sign, or at least awarding it a unique meaning, filling with content, even if heroic or individuating. If we were not to treat Jung’s archetypes as given forever or unchanging, then now is the time to build new ones. Nothing is certain but the process of production and the properties of our mind, and where it goes from there is hard to predict, but it is likely to be ever more niche, ever more individual, despite the galvanisation efforts of the Old. The politicians will still be trying to draw from that primitive tribalism, revive and organise it under the eternal signs, but the new is already there – in the followers of the various music styles, dress codes, yoga, vegetarianism, extreme sports, piercing, or whatever. All that is becoming somehow equal to the old incantations, and – horrors! – of the same intellectual weight. And for the thinking, sensitive ilk, there are more discreet codes, more delicate provocations, there is irony and non-classified emotions. Do Katarzyna Januszko’s decorative works fill some void left by the hard signs, or are they only a play about them? Those references to the civilisational anxiety, to the poetry and domination of the machine, viewed a bit like Piranesi saw his ruins and carceri, a bit like the underwater rubbish-traces in the Stalker, will provide us with emotions that may be underlined with fear, but are our own. Someone offers us something that has already been seen, something from a world that has persisted in its perhaps kitschy but warm culture, and says, ‘oh, does this imprint left by the car battery not look like a cult object, and this here, isn’t it a mandala, and that, perhaps a Hermes Trismegistos chart, and that thing there, couldn’t it be put the logo of the New Order Party?’

The works bring to mind the automatic female art of carpet weaving, using the same patterns for generations over and over again, but there stands behind them a thought about random meanings, unplanned aesthetic. They are also a perverse reaction to contemporary art’s call for maximum individualisation and originality.

Krzysztof Żwirblis

 

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