Janusz Baldyga

Janusz Ba?dyga is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, where he studied painting from 1974 to 1979. He received his diploma from the studio of Professor Stefan Gierowski in 1979. From 1977-79 he co-managed the Pracownia Dziekanka (Dziekanka Workshop) and was a member of the Grupa Pracownia (Workshop Group) from 1976 to 1981. He creates performances, installations and three-dimensional objects. The artist conveys his creative ideas using a language in which the construction of communiqués is of paramount importance. He uses common materials like boards, string or relatively simple, symbolic representations, including identification photos, maps, the silhouettes of airplanes or figurines. The actions he performs relative to his own body and objects are invariably functional, stripped of overt expression, yet simultaneously symbolic. Of Hard to Get the artist has said, ?Things and ideas co-opted, appropriated by societies that have undergone limited democratic transformation come to constitute a sign of their times. They exist outside of overt processes of social evolution. They constitute a dark margin hidden by those in power. Access to ideas and material goods is disproportionate to general activity and to their social value, which often proves immeasurable. ?Hard to Get? is about the early stages of deformed democracy.

The first object of this series was included in the exhibition ?W?adza ludu? / ?Power of the People,? which was curated by Krzysztof ?wirblis. At that time, I created a table set with things that were hard to get. The tragedy lay in their absolute unavailability or availability for the price of humiliation. Krzysztof ?wirblis said at that time, ?This is a subtle allusion to the mystery of building paradise and the end of history, and simultaneously a call to build the essence of the table of democracy.?

The objects that seek a place for themselves in the old water cistern enter into a discourse with this uncommon space. They respect the laws they encounter and strengthen the intended message or do the opposite, withdrawing, becoming observers of the brick arch. Pressetext

Janusz Baldyga - HARD TO GET
installation/action
Kurator: Wojciech Krukowski