translated and summarized by: Liz Wollner-Grandville,
040411: Galerie mezzanin Marzena Nowak
Galerie mezzanin
Marzena Nowak
16.03.11 – 30.04.11
In Morpheus arms
In her second solo exhibit at the Galerie mezzanin in Vienna, the young Polish artist Marzena Nowak presents conceptual art strategies employed to modify physical and mental experiences. Nowak’s works are currently also being shown at the Salzburger Kunstverein.
Upon entering the small front room in the Galerie mezzanin the visitor is confronted with a piece of carpet positioned in the middle of the floor like a paper pattern. Along the wall are wooden ledges, similar to handrails that function like a body-repellent, protecting the white wall from human contact. Nowak’s entrance area radiates both cosiness and desolation, yes, even coldness. Everything has its place, but on account of its barrenness, one does not feel like staying. The room constitutes an entre where one can brush off the outside world.
In the gallery’s main room there are different sized canvases marked with fine pencil lines creating grids that have been systematically painted with colour triangles. Here the artist applies a serial, repetitive procedure that allows her to use colour as an emotional form of expression or simply to ascribe certain attributes to the colour. It is a kind of mathematical system, the positioning of codes and colours that create a shimmering overall picture. Nowak achieves convincing aesthetic solutions; the subtle colourful grid structures seem to swing like sounds.
A four-minute video – “untitled, in between” – showing the transition from sleeping to awakening, is also presented. A hand rests calmly on a brick surface until it slips off. The video skilfully captured this moment of awakening, the moment of “no longer and not any more”. Similar to the images on canvas, the video predominantly deals with – feminine – experiences of an everyday rhythm reminding of summer afternoons behind dark drapes. Marzena Nowaks’s main topics are the visualisation of emotions and their quality structure in space and time, and she is successful in finding a visual language to do so.
By Susanne Rohringer
Galerie mezzanin
1010 Vienna, Getreidemarkt 14/corner Eschenbachgasse
Tel: +43 1 526 43 56
Fax:+ 43 1 526 91 87
Email: mezzanin@chello.at
http://www.mezzaningallery.com
Opening hours: Tue-Fri Noon – 6 p.m. , Sat 11 a.m. – 2 p.m.
040411
Galerie mezzanin
1010 Wien, Getreidemarkt 14/Ecke Eschenbachgasse
Tel: +43 (0) 1 526 43 56, Fax: +43 (0) 1 526 91 87
Email: mezzanin@chello.at
http://www.mezzaningallery.com
Öffnungszeiten: geschlossen
Galerie mezzanin
1010 Wien, Getreidemarkt 14/Ecke Eschenbachgasse
Tel: +43 (0) 1 526 43 56, Fax: +43 (0) 1 526 91 87
Email: mezzanin@chello.at
http://www.mezzaningallery.com
Öffnungszeiten: geschlossen