Magdalena Cybulska - My skin

Opening:

June 12, 2019 at 18: 00-21: 00

Start date: 12.06.2019

End date: 30.06.2019

Patrons and Partners:

About the exhibition:

Leather with my talisman

Arranging the latest paintings by Magdalena Cybulska into an exhibition that we present in Xanadu, I have escaped sincere but controversial attention. "They are so ugly, simply nasty." Fortunately, the author knew what I meant, because she reacted enthusiastically: "I am happy that they like them, and in the right way!"

I appreciate the thread of understanding with the artist, whose works I show to a wider audience. Of course, it is not true that Magda Cybulska's works are ugly - they are disturbing, ephemeral, beautiful different, magical, unsaid. Their non-beauty concerns simplicity, severity, cardiness and economy of the formal means used. They all use a monochrome color scale. They wander between matt blacks, raw canvas, lead white and delicate infiltrates of pastel colors. Steel grays and pigeons refer more to sleep than to waking.

This is a good lead, because each chamber painting of Magda is an illustration of a night story, which in fact dreamed of the author and could be added during the day in the form of painting. We pick them up individually. Sometimes I asked if a particular image is a nightmare illustration. Magda denied in surprise. Apparently this was my interpretation of the work, much more drastic than the artist's reality and intentions. Magda emphasizes that most of the dreams were pleasant, intriguing and appealing. Sometimes a little bit erotic, but rarely and not really. Some were more specific, others had to be repainted more strongly. Most are not obvious and leave the viewers an amazing field of imagination.

The small formats of the paintings prepared by the artist incline to individual, almost intimate contemplation. A similar intention can be read from the oval borders, which are a compositional element of some representations. This makes them personal, close. They become a talisman. There is also an association with historical times, when women wore long dresses, jewelry with cameos, hats and umbrellas with frills. Such a classic connotation is not the only one, however, because some of the works are thoroughly modern, others are original and indigenous in their narrative. They are dreams, so they don't give in to hierarchization, ordering or rigorous interpretation. They encourage you to let your imagination run free, ponder your own thoughts and intimate relations with the motives presented. However, I encourage you to ask the author of painting performances for specific stories. The answers can be surprising. Such questions seem particularly legitimate, given the fact that we see self-portraits in several paintings.

The complement of the presented painting works is video, as well as the entire exhibition entitled "My skin". It is also a sleepy, oneiric record in a disturbing climate. I was thinking about the title of the cycle in the context of the topic of sleep. The skin is a barrier. It separates us from the often hostile external environment. It's easy to damage. Is a point of contact, something in between. Her role is therefore ambiguous. It can be beautiful, but it is also the fastest destructive passage of time. We are allowed to specify, it closes our body together. Without it, we would be a shapeless mass exposed to bacterial attacks. Dreaming is also so ambiguous. Good sleep is a condition of health. The Internet is bursting with tablets for sleep and advice on how to get its high quality. Sleep is rest, flight, sometimes torment. Sleep is called the death brother, but most people would like to die in a dream. Sleep is a subconscious mirror of our desires, expectations, dreams and worries. In a dream we experience very intensely what we did not want to receive straight away. It can be media reports, stress at work, but we can also dream about dreams. It is worth a try.

Agnieszka Gniotek

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