[POLISH UNOFFICIAL ART – PHOTOGRAPHY] Pieta.
Niedzica Castle, 1978. Vintage gelatin silver print (ca. 1983), 12.5 × 17.8 cm. Inscription by the artist to the right side of the print in flack felt tip pen. Very good. Item #54285
A live restaging of the Pieta motif, this work is part of the Living Images series, created by Adam Rzepecki (b.1950) in 1978. Working under the slogan “I pretend to be an artist” Adam Rzepecki (b. 1950) studied Art History at the Jagellonian University in Krakow, his later artistic work continually referring to the history of art, re-working, tweaking, and thereby commenting on artistic practice. In his student days Rzepecki created a series of photographs “Living Images”, re-staging famous paintings from the history of art, a signature practice of Lódź Kaliska which he co-founded in 1979, after meeting Marek Janiak a year earlier at the Poznań art festival. Their banner “Temple of embarrassing art” stretched over the festival grounds at Osieki 81 would be the first direct attack on Polish neo-avant-garde, and signal the arrival of neo-dada. Commenting on gender, and gender bending was another important feature of Rzepecki’s work. His 1981 “Statue of the Polish Father”, depicting a Rzepecki breastfeeding an infant, recalls the imagery of Madonna and Child. Similarly, his 1983 cover of the first TANGO contains a postcard of Madonna and Child (Our Lady of Częstochowa), with the image “desecrated” by a drawn-on mustache, in a manner similar to Ducham’s treatment of the Mona Lisa. In the Polish context, Rzepecki’s act was art-historical as well as political – part of Kultura Zrzuty distancing itself from both the state-sanctioned art and the artistic and political dissidents supported by the Catholic Church.
Price: €1,800.00