-------Joanna Rajkowska
-------A WATER-TOWER. A HEADACHE.
-------Curator Marek Gozdziewski
------------------LABORATORIUM--GALLERY--------4.06.--14.07.1996--------------
A water-tower. A headache is an installation about hanging upside down, in other
words about a kind of pathology. This condition causes the blood-pressure to increase and resulting in
a very strong sense of heaviness and pain. .
--
The characteristic trait of this work is in it's absurd narrative. Its structure is composed on allows to
spurt two pairs of antipodes. The unbearable heaviness allows the fountains to spurt out and erupt.
Erotic, sensual joy is contrasted with torture, a golden, perfectly formed figure promises immortality,
while the photography seems to say: you only need to change the positon of the body - and you will die.
Rajkowska is concerned with the mutual dependency between the deformity and illness of the mind and
spirit on the one hand and the body on the other, which is expressed in every possible aspect of her works.
The great diversity of media employed are among her art's most salient characteristics. It is the subject,
which makes her art coherent. At the core, her constant aim has been to emphasize the interdependance
between mental and physical disabilities. Hence, the relationship between functioning (or dysfunctioning)
of the organism and THE mind. She questions the traditional, theoretical separation of the mind and the body
that is deeply ingrained in Western philosophy. The distinctive effect Rajkowska produces in all dimensions
of her work is a state of fear as a consequence of the overhelming experience of pain, loss of eyesight,
ecstasy or sickness.
---
With equal intensity in the result, she may employ old-fashioned materials such as wax and plaster;
old medical or architectural treatises; natural substances such as salt, bones, blood, iodine, cerebrospinal
fluid; synthetics; photography; electronic means of display such as video and recorded sound; or live
performance.
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