Saturday ArtWalk: Tats. Guided tour in English
Zachęta – National Gallery of Art
entry included in the ticket price
Maurycy Gomulicki is a Polish artist, photographer and author of short films. He is best-known for controversial artworks often using erotic themes, for example in his series “Vaginettes” (2000) or “Bibliophilia” (2011). He even designed a chain of sex-shops in Mexico. Gomulicki’s work often borders on kitsch or pornography. The artist is interested in aesthetics sometimes considered ugly or at least not worthy of being exposed in an art gallery. The Tats exhibitions is based on similar ideas – it consists of photographs of primitive tattoos made in prisons or on ships by amateur artists. Gomulicki is fascinated by the rawness and authenticity of these simple drawings. However, the exhibition can also be seen as a documentation of a certain type of masculinity – macho, aggressive and sexist, but also fragile.
guide: Sara Herczyńska
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21.08 – 28.10.2018TatsMaurycy GomulickiAmong the many roles played by Maurycy Gomulicki in his work as an artist, the role of a pop culture anthropologist is particularly fruitful. This can be seen in the case of the Tats project, dedicated to the documentation of primitive tattoos worn primarily by people identifying with the so-called git (git-ludzie, slang for ‘good people’) subculture, which was popular among young residents of large housing estates in the 1970s. From 2007 on, Gomulicki wandered through flea markets, parks and other marginalised areas of the city, taking thousands of photographs documenting this disappearing phenomenon and capturing this — often primitive, but honest — ‘iconography’ of the dreams of exotic lands, paradise, pleasure and longing, emerging in the most brutal conditions of imprisonment, military service, labour corps and detention centres.
Zachęta – National Gallery of ArtZachęta
