JEWS / The Krasnals / Galeria Fibak

Info on facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1546993955606416/

THE KRASNALS

Jews

May 13 – June 4, 2016

Opening: May 13, at 6pm

Galeria Fibak, ul. Krakowskie Przedmieście 5, Warsaw

JEWS / The Krasnals

‘Jews’ - The Krasnals' project is a collection of over 50 paintings of the same size depicting well-known Jews. All scenes presented on the pictures come from American and European movies from the last eighty years. This project, being a natural consequence of the famous series ‘Nazis’ by Uklański, presents faces of famous characters, who became commonly recognizable thanks to the silver screen. We do not consider whether it is good or bad - it creates a specific quality, very problematic in terms of combining historical truth and authenticity with its load of knowledge, emotions, and different kinds of values ​​that we cannot specify exactly here.

Being used to movie images causes a sort of pervert confusion, a feeling of attachment which acknowledges the shift of authenticity and realistic truth into the background, in exchange for a fascinating story developing in front of us. Who is the authentic Mark Zuckerberg? He himself or the actor Jesse Eisenberg? Amedeo Modigliani or Andy Garcia? Who is The Wolf of Wall Street - Jordan Belfort or Leonardo di Caprio?

We have applied here the rule of exaggeration, we wanted to have lots of paintings. Lots of portraits and characters. In order to extract a new quality out of them. We called in our friends painters to help us. Over a few months they were coming to the studio and painting their artistic visions.

We are not of Jewish origin, we even do not know many Jews. But this subject is present all the time in social communication, in media conspiracies, so there is no way to avoid being interested in it. All the time, there are phobias, panics, discussions - including aggressive conspiracy theories, as well as controversial (in the field of art) subject of Holocaust and its so-called commercialization. In the midst of it all, there is something attractive and fascinating, something we feel drawn into. We could provisionally call it the blood tissue soaking with wild artistry. Something alive, injected with hormones. Actually, both us and our friends artists know Jews only from we have read about them, heard about them, and from the movies. Visually, just from the movies. Occasionally, from the news on TV or the Internet.

We started with repainting selected frames. Realistically, faithfully. In colour, sometimes in black and white. All in squares 50x50 cm big. Great frames, a goldmine of inspiration, ready images. Things got really interesting when someone came across a problem. People started tinkering with paints. Almost getting under the skin. Unexpected things started to happen. A hitherto unseen in the original frames expression came into light, sometimes as a result of an abstract procedure. One day, for example, we started to cut out our fragments from the frames, in order to look at them from a different perspective, approaching them closely even to the point of intimacy. Where the detailed picture starts to blur, there are the strongest accents.

Jews are said to be just like everyone else, only more so. We, as artists, at this moment are not interested in the big picture of this phenomenon, this nation, we are not too keen to possess the entire huge volume of knowledge about their history, culture, politics. What we would like to express right now, as artists, is our delight in the word ‘more’.

The Krasnals