Pocket Knife Instead of the Alphabet

Jakub Czyszczon’s third solo exhibition with Stereo includes the latest works characterized by the great diversity of forms. Paintings and assamblages, canvas and paper, large formats and miniatures, all representing the full range of his previous means of expression and show a great degree of affinity. In a sense, this is a retrospective exhibition, a summary.

A self-referential thread has always been present in Czyszczon’s work – in his emphasis on the process through a kind of sloppiness in cleaning the accumulated traces, or his interest in the role of chance by including margins and errors. What is completely new is his introduction of the issue of violence in the title of the exhibition.

A pocket knife has a completely different weight when, after hours spent in the studio, it is in our pocket on the way home. Czyszczoń aims at creating a similar alteration of context: always far from evoking literary or anecdotal tropes, he uses visual language (a language without an alphabet but not without its own rules) by assembling elements that on their own seem to lack any clear message. In the light of day, in the middle of the street, non-verbal communication can take on a new, risky dimension.

May transforming an object into an art object be perceived as an act of aggression? Czyszczoń has created an exhibition where he looks at his own art as an act of violence – in this way, the self-referential becomes self-reflective and thus very necessary.