O Zone – Joanna Rajkowska & Marlena Kudlicka (Poland)

October, 25th – December 19th, 2008
curated by Susanne Altmann

What have Joanna Rajkowska’s video „Oxygenator’ and Marlena Kudlicka’s sculpture „How to make a big hole in a small one’ in common and what is their relation to the show’s title

„O ZONE’ ?

Ozone, that is pure oxygen, was bubbling up from a small pond, that Joanna Rajkowska has created in the heart of Warsaw in 2006, at Plac Grzybowski, as temporary meeting place for local inhabitants. The video work „Oxygenator’ documents impressively, how this urban oasis with water and sitting devices has emerged literally out of nothing and transformed a neglected urban non-site into a frequented situation.

From 0 (Zero) – zones likes this, that is from mostly ignored situations, Marlena Kudlicka too derives her artistic inspiration. She animates architectural remnants, investor’s ruins and construction materials and produces sculptures and murals out of these elements, art works, that combine constructivist elegance with a certain DIY-gesture. „Ozone in the 0-Zone’ – that’s how one can connect the respective approaches of both artists in the public realm.

Rajkowska gains her orientation mostly from a mental infrastructure, whereas Kudlicka rather focuses on the built environment. For the central show room of Kunsthaus Raskolnikow, Kudlicka develops two new installations: „How to make a big hole in a small one’ and „Crop the fake picture’, made of bricks, broken glass, soot powder and roofing paper. Besides „Oxygenator’, Joanna Rajkowska will also present the film „Maya Gordon goes to Chorzow’, where the artist accompanies a Jewish artist friend, who emigrated from Poland to Israel 50 years ago on her journey back to the places of her childhood in Warsaw and Silesia.