Arts
Feel Home
CC Strombeek
09/04/10 - 10/05/10
The Feel Home exhibition will explore the intersections where art meets design, those areas which can collide or merge, depending on the point of view of the person looking at or using the object. It will take both a serious and sardonic look at artistic production over the last forty years. The atmosphere, sometimes solemn, sometimes mocking, evoked by the film Koolhaas Houselife by Ila Beka and Louise Lemoine, will contribute significantly to the overall feel of the exhibition.
The exhibition will showcase historical work by artists who have explored, both in a conceptual and a critical way, their relationships with issues relating to the notions of habitat and interior architecture. On display will be the works and archives of eminent artists who played an important role in the history of XXth century art, such as Donald Judd, Gordon Matta-Clark, Mario Merz or Gerhard Richter. Artistic pieces from the finest collections will be displayed alongside productions by famous or up-and-coming designers, noted for their capacity to sublimate their function and become established as works of art, two examples being works by Gaetano Pesce and Ron Arad. Feel Home will also be welcoming young artists or designers, including Polish art photography duo Aneta Grzeszykowska & Jan Smaga , as well as Paweł Grobelny , a Polish designer, who will make a utilitarian speech around the terrace of the Strombeek Cultural Centre (Centre culturel de Strombeek).
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PAWEŁ GROBELNY
The designer and graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań has, in the past, received a study bursary from the National College of Fine Arts in Paris (École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-arts de Paris), the National College of Fine Arts in Lyon (École Nationale des Beaux-Arts de Lyon) and the French government as well as from the Pont Neuf organisation in Paris.
He has won many design competitions, of which the following are especially worthy of mention:
‘LVMH Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy for Young Designers 2005/2006’ (LVMH Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy pour les jeunes créateurs 2005/2006), Parckdesign 2008’, ‘Prodeco 2006 – Young Designer’, ‘Prodeco 2008’ and the ‘Grand Prix Henkel Art Award’. He was also awarded the honorary prize for ‘The new subjectivity in design’ prize, which is organised by the Zachęta National Gallery in Warsaw and the British Council. His work has been presented at the Berlin ‘DesignMai Festival’, at the Frankfurt ‘Talents Ambiente’, at the Paris ‘Meuble Paris’, at the Biennale Internationale du Design de Saint-Etienne, at the New York ‘ICFF’ and during Tokyo Design Week.
He designs furniture, interiors and public spaces and organises design exhibitions.
ANETA GRZESZYKOWSKA
Born in Warsaw in 1974, Aneta Grzeszykowska studied at the Faculty of Graphic Art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw from 1994 until 1999. Since 1999, she has been the artistic collaborator of Jan Smaga and currently lives in Warsaw.
The primary medium with which Aneta Grzeszykowska works is photography. Using the latter as a tool, she puts it to work in sophisticated artistic and ontological exercises. The artist is interested in the role photography plays in creating and documenting a personal identity. Thus, in her video projects or sculpted dolls, the human face acquires the form and the aura of a puppet . One of Grzeszykowska’s major projects is her own identity, with which she plays around on a number of levels: by making herself disappear from a family photo album ( Album , 2005), or by taking on the role of Cindy Sherman in her classic cycle ‘Untitled Film Stills’ (2006). Some of the artist’s projects, such as the cycle of portraits of people who do not exist ( Untitled , 2006), draw on the possibilities offered by manipulating digital images where others use photography and film in a classical way by highlighting the performative dimension of an artist’s activities. Absence, invisibility, disappearance and what happens when body and thought collide with inexistence are motifs to which the artist returns in an obsessive manner in her work.
JAN SMAGA
Born in Warsaw in 1974, Jan Smaga studied at the Faculty of Graphic Art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw from 1994 until 1999. Since 1999, he has been the artistic collaborator of Aneta Grzeszykowska and currently lives in Warsaw.
Jan Smaga works in the field of photography. He combines classical techniques with computer montage and his three-dimensional constructions of photographic objects. With Aneta Grzeszykowska, he has produced several series of work, the main theme of which lay in moving from a three-dimensional architectural space to a two-dimensional image ( Plan , 2003) and the attempt to recreate architectural three-dimensionality using spatial photographical installations ( YMCA , 2005). The technique developed by Grzeszykowska and Smaga reminds us of the scanning process: it is a comprehensive, voyeuristic documentation of space and the people who inhabit this space. In his individual projects, Smaga offers an equally detailed analysis of the human body. The incredibly formal quality of his photographs, which connects the viewer to the subject matter, sends a shiver down ones spine. Smaga is fascinated by photography’s power of illusion, by the way in which the third dimension can be interpreted and by the question as to what extent we can break through the surface of photography, as if we were peeling the skin off reality.
The exhibition will showcase historical work by artists who have explored, both in a conceptual and a critical way, their relationships with issues relating to the notions of habitat and interior architecture. On display will be the works and archives of eminent artists who played an important role in the history of XXth century art, such as Donald Judd, Gordon Matta-Clark, Mario Merz or Gerhard Richter. Artistic pieces from the finest collections will be displayed alongside productions by famous or up-and-coming designers, noted for their capacity to sublimate their function and become established as works of art, two examples being works by Gaetano Pesce and Ron Arad. Feel Home will also be welcoming young artists or designers, including Polish art photography duo Aneta Grzeszykowska & Jan Smaga , as well as Paweł Grobelny , a Polish designer, who will make a utilitarian speech around the terrace of the Strombeek Cultural Centre (Centre culturel de Strombeek).
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PAWEŁ GROBELNY
The designer and graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań has, in the past, received a study bursary from the National College of Fine Arts in Paris (École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-arts de Paris), the National College of Fine Arts in Lyon (École Nationale des Beaux-Arts de Lyon) and the French government as well as from the Pont Neuf organisation in Paris.
He has won many design competitions, of which the following are especially worthy of mention:
‘LVMH Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy for Young Designers 2005/2006’ (LVMH Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy pour les jeunes créateurs 2005/2006), Parckdesign 2008’, ‘Prodeco 2006 – Young Designer’, ‘Prodeco 2008’ and the ‘Grand Prix Henkel Art Award’. He was also awarded the honorary prize for ‘The new subjectivity in design’ prize, which is organised by the Zachęta National Gallery in Warsaw and the British Council. His work has been presented at the Berlin ‘DesignMai Festival’, at the Frankfurt ‘Talents Ambiente’, at the Paris ‘Meuble Paris’, at the Biennale Internationale du Design de Saint-Etienne, at the New York ‘ICFF’ and during Tokyo Design Week.
He designs furniture, interiors and public spaces and organises design exhibitions.
ANETA GRZESZYKOWSKA
Born in Warsaw in 1974, Aneta Grzeszykowska studied at the Faculty of Graphic Art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw from 1994 until 1999. Since 1999, she has been the artistic collaborator of Jan Smaga and currently lives in Warsaw.
The primary medium with which Aneta Grzeszykowska works is photography. Using the latter as a tool, she puts it to work in sophisticated artistic and ontological exercises. The artist is interested in the role photography plays in creating and documenting a personal identity. Thus, in her video projects or sculpted dolls, the human face acquires the form and the aura of a puppet . One of Grzeszykowska’s major projects is her own identity, with which she plays around on a number of levels: by making herself disappear from a family photo album ( Album , 2005), or by taking on the role of Cindy Sherman in her classic cycle ‘Untitled Film Stills’ (2006). Some of the artist’s projects, such as the cycle of portraits of people who do not exist ( Untitled , 2006), draw on the possibilities offered by manipulating digital images where others use photography and film in a classical way by highlighting the performative dimension of an artist’s activities. Absence, invisibility, disappearance and what happens when body and thought collide with inexistence are motifs to which the artist returns in an obsessive manner in her work.
JAN SMAGA
Born in Warsaw in 1974, Jan Smaga studied at the Faculty of Graphic Art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw from 1994 until 1999. Since 1999, he has been the artistic collaborator of Aneta Grzeszykowska and currently lives in Warsaw.
Jan Smaga works in the field of photography. He combines classical techniques with computer montage and his three-dimensional constructions of photographic objects. With Aneta Grzeszykowska, he has produced several series of work, the main theme of which lay in moving from a three-dimensional architectural space to a two-dimensional image ( Plan , 2003) and the attempt to recreate architectural three-dimensionality using spatial photographical installations ( YMCA , 2005). The technique developed by Grzeszykowska and Smaga reminds us of the scanning process: it is a comprehensive, voyeuristic documentation of space and the people who inhabit this space. In his individual projects, Smaga offers an equally detailed analysis of the human body. The incredibly formal quality of his photographs, which connects the viewer to the subject matter, sends a shiver down ones spine. Smaga is fascinated by photography’s power of illusion, by the way in which the third dimension can be interpreted and by the question as to what extent we can break through the surface of photography, as if we were peeling the skin off reality.
Links
- CC Strombeek: http://ccstrombeek.be
