The photo-based collage work The Glass of Petrol by Agnieszka Polska (b. 1985, Lublin/Berlin) shows a black background with a perfectly shaped champagne glass, fully centered, taking over most of the image. The crystal glass itself is exceptionally clean, allowing its sensuously colored contents to come hypnotically through. The luxurious colors of the liquid – a mix of blue, purple, light yellow, and pinks – slightly remind us of images of the Earth as captured from space, yet they are also deceiving since we recognize from the work’s title the dark fuel to which humanity is addicted.
The impeccable and highly stylized image is visibly dreamlike, suspended from the ceiling near the main entrance in Gallery 1, yet the aqueous subject tells us of a more somber future ahead, one in which our craving and dependence on finite resources will inevitably shift the alluring landscape we hoped the Earth would always look like. It combines Polska’s interest in myths and dreams and bringing life to muted histories through the digital rendering of photography and film. Her work revolves around these mediums, their production and circulation under digital conditions but also their affective allure. She is attentive to the amnesic gaps within art history and attempts to reconstruct those forgotten histories especially observant of the avant-garde. Many times her films activate archival photographs or images sourced from the Internet, as she reimagines alternative lives and scenarios for them. Her works are unhurried, contemplative, and move gradually; they require deep meditative attention from both the maker and the viewer. JV
self-presentation:
My creative moments usually happen at the intersection of outermost emotions: it can be the outrage at the news together with the fear of cosmic distances, deep sadness combined with an excitement that comes from thinking about quantum mechanics, or animals with the photosynthetic ability. The experiences important for my creative work also come from various places: working as a housekeeper in a hotel by the Grand Canyon, with an insurmountable amount of tasks that led me to leaving most of the bed sheets unchanged. Getting to know the body of work of Polish avant-garde group Zamek. Being infected with an insidious bacteria by a tick. Spending some time by myself in a solitary cottage on the Swedish island of Gotland. At the end of the stay, hearing a voice in my head telling me that I should stop being an artist.
