Katarzyna Przezwańska

Untitled, 2012
Mendil jbala fabric

Katarzyna Przezwańska (b. 1984 in Warsaw, lives and works in Warsaw) makes reference to modernism in a way that has never been seen in Polish art until now. In contrast to the Polish artists who debuted in around the year 2000, Przezwańska no longer sees Modernism as aesthetic fetishism, the picturesque ruins of a fallen utopia, or a sentimental journey to the concrete-gray lands of her childhood years. Just the contrary: Przezwańska’s work refers to modernism in its heroic period, still filled with optimism, hope and color. In this regard, it extends to include architecture directed towards the individual, adapted to their personal needs, and laying claim to totality.
Przezwańska’s interventions and spatial projects are not just another critique of Modernism, but an attempt to regain some of its ideas for the present. Constructing multicolored, strongly individualized spaces, details and objects, Przezwańska, with tongue in cheek, convinces us that what was truly revolutionary in modernism was quickly replaced. Modernism is our antiquity because we warped its original character. Colorful facades, multicolored walls and ceilings of private homes, rainbow colored adornments on public buildings and their surroundings, furniture tailored to the owner’s needs.

Przezwańska’s work allows us to view from a distance the hold in which Polish public space finds itself. Her most lively characters are the shells of Socialist-Modernism, which do not allow themselves to be forgotten: demolished and decaying, burdened with the memories of Communism, but most of all, consistently ignored by historical conservators, they function as a myth, one which can not be filled with content. On the other hand, Poland’s architectural landscape also includes the universal architectural glass and steel, style-less style of the global village.

See also: www.galeriakolonie.pl/en/galeria/2/22