Curatorial project:
ID: E18.11
Title:
Agata Awruk:
Life Goes On
Date:
March 2 — May 19, 2018
Place:
Ludwik Zamenhof Centre, Bialystok, Poland
Curator:
Sergey Shabohin
Artist:
Agata Awruk
Agata Awruk:
photos from exhibition
Life Goes On,
2018
photos from exhibition
Life Goes On,
2018
Explication:
The photographs that are presented on the exhibition, were took in Białystok in the last two years, but this indication of a specific time and place is unnecessary, as it is hardly referenced in the exposition. Timelessness and placelessness show us the quality of these photographs. We can see the abstract nature of even quite specific images. Famous Heraclitus’ aphorism “Everything flows, everything changes” most accurately represents the essence of the reality shown at the exhibition. The relentless flow of life was stopped and fixed with the help of the photographic process. It can be said, that the photographs included in the exhibition are self-reflective. They show us that process of fixing the fragments of real world in photographic images, where the flow of vital juices congeals on glass and skin, in hair and grass, inside veins and medical tubes. That process of freezing the reality with the help of photography is depicted here with the image of a thin layer of ice framed by the walls of an empty pool.
Life goes on. The sensation of life in images on the one hand is existentially unbearable with the realization of one's own scarred physiology, mouldy life and irritating flies. On the other hand, it is filled with lyrical hope and ecstasy from contemplating elusive moments.
Agata Awruk’s photography refers us to the trend of snapshot aesthetic, which mimics the manner of taking random, banal photographs in a hurry. Such aesthetic arose against the fatigue from staged and overdone photos with thoughtful composition. They most subtly reflect the surface of the fabric of the reality, in its everyday life and hidden timeless truths. And today the snapshot aesthetics received a powerful impetus for development in connection with the emergence of social networks. Agata Awruk herself sneers at the fact that she became engaged in photography having signed up on Instagram, an Internet service that greatly influenced the development of photography and its perception in the world. Social networks and new technologies on the one hand led to a rapid growth in the quality of technical and aesthetic methods of taking photographs, and on the other, greatly changed our attitude to photography. We began to appreciate random images, to doubt the need for excessive quality, perceive the printed pictures and the stories built on them differently. These transformations are reflected in Agata Awruk’s work.
Sergey Shabohin
Life goes on. The sensation of life in images on the one hand is existentially unbearable with the realization of one's own scarred physiology, mouldy life and irritating flies. On the other hand, it is filled with lyrical hope and ecstasy from contemplating elusive moments.
Agata Awruk’s photography refers us to the trend of snapshot aesthetic, which mimics the manner of taking random, banal photographs in a hurry. Such aesthetic arose against the fatigue from staged and overdone photos with thoughtful composition. They most subtly reflect the surface of the fabric of the reality, in its everyday life and hidden timeless truths. And today the snapshot aesthetics received a powerful impetus for development in connection with the emergence of social networks. Agata Awruk herself sneers at the fact that she became engaged in photography having signed up on Instagram, an Internet service that greatly influenced the development of photography and its perception in the world. Social networks and new technologies on the one hand led to a rapid growth in the quality of technical and aesthetic methods of taking photographs, and on the other, greatly changed our attitude to photography. We began to appreciate random images, to doubt the need for excessive quality, perceive the printed pictures and the stories built on them differently. These transformations are reflected in Agata Awruk’s work.
Sergey Shabohin
Link: