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Tomasz Kowalski at Dawid Radziszewski Gallery

February 22, 2020

Artist: Tomasz Kowalski

Exhibition title: Ghost, Actor, Thing

Venue: Dawid Radziszewski Gallery, Warsaw, Poland

Date: January 17 – February 22, 2020

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Dawid Radziszewski Gallery, Warsaw

Imagine a time before inflation, you’re carrying a high-denomination banknote in your pocket, 10,000 Zlotys. Wawel Castle’s in the background, all foggy. Remember the guide to the bars and cafes, added to your favorite music magazine? 10,000 won’t buy you anything there. You live in a tenement building without central heating, in the city center of this or that town. There’s music stores, still full of cassettes and CDs. Mostly alternative. Imagine such 90s, that still go on in 2020.

Here, where the gallery is now, there’s no middle-class apartment buildings, there’s even no gallery. I do something completely else. There’s factory and print-house ruins on the other side of Towarowa street. This is where cult members meet, where they have some sort of a club. They jump over the fence to reed Andrzej Szpindler poems, listen to tapes from Alicja label, and talk. Main topics are: Rothko Chapel with Morton Feldman music in the background, Nowosielski’s orthodox church, Goetheanum outside of Basel, Żuławski and Ken Russell movies. Oneiron group, vampires, Chochoły (the thug-resembling Straw-wraps), and figures without a shell, or with just a shell, but empty inside.

Tomasz Kowalski, born 1984 roku in Szczebrzeszyn. Painter, founder of Alicja record label. His artistic practice reflects a hauntological passion for art and culture of the past. He mixes decades and aesthetics, juxtaposing them with his own wandering protagonists. Winner of Guerlain Foundation Drawing Award. His works are part of numerous collections, such as Centre Pompidou, mumok in Vienna, MOCAK in Kraków, and The ING Polish Art Foundation.