WHAT A BEAUTIFUL CATASTROPHE

As the pandemic stormed into our lives and nothing but dead silence can be heard in museums and galleries, the meaningful context of this situation was used by Barbara Żłobińska and Mariusz Maślanka as the background for their latest exhibition. Their voice is loud and can be clearly heard by making the audience feel shivers going up and down their spines.

Every single presented work can be analysed individually, each carries certain underlying idea and emotions. I am You, But Stronger can certainly be perceived as a whole, which is something more significant than the sum of its constituent parts. Maybe the crowds during the vernissage would influence perception of the exhibition and other motives would take centre stage. Today’s experience of watching it alone due to the requirements to maintain social distance, maybe only through the window of the closed SiC! Gallery, makes you pay close attention to the way in which the two artists and the curator display their works. The exhibition is very economical when it comes to embellishment. The works, all in monochrome, are loosely placed in the bright gallery space. Seemingly it is a classic white cube, but it does not act as a transparent background against which works are presented (this is a typical role of such kind of presentation space). It is the opposite. Minimalistic, bland surrounding space and emptiness around create another narrative thread. This unique concept transforms the exhibition of Barbara Żłobińska and Mariusz Maślanka into a futurist freeze-frame, part of the tale on possible future or a postcard from a dead planet. (…)

The excerpt above is part of an article published in the Contemporary Lynx online magazine. The whole is available at: contemporarylynx.co.uk/what-a-beautiful-catastrophe.

By: Kuba Żary 2020