Mariola Przyjemska Consumption, Construction and Melancholia

16.09.2022 – 08.01.2023 Mariola Przyjemska Consumption, Construction and Melancholia

Zachęta – National Gallery of Art

curators: Ewa Majewska and Ewa Opałka

Presented at the Zachęta Gallery exhibition is the first, so far, such a comprehensive presentation of Mariola Przyjemska's works, bringing together oeuvre from all periods of her career. The monographic exhibition will present more than 100 works created over the last four decades. It aims to introduce the work of this artist, who always draws on both cutting-edge and traditional media — from painting and drawing to photography and video — in an innovative way. Przyjemska comments in a lively and engaged manner on the transformation of the real and symbolic Polish post-transformation landscape. In the early 1990s — almost a decade before sociologists and cultural researchers — she discovered the importance of branding and logos in the modern world. Despite this, the artist has not yet taken her rightful place in the canon of contemporary Polish art — she has appeared in important group exhibitions at home and abroad, often in the context of critical art, but without much resonance. 

Towards the end of her studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw in the second half of the 1980s, Przyjemska developed an autonomous proposal for ‘mystical’ painting, which was not devoid of transgressive elements — at the time, she remained within the circle of the Świadomość Neue Bieremiennost group. At the beginning of the 1990s, in response to the transformation processes taking place in Poland, the artist made a pioneering attempt to summarise the issue of consumerism, reaching for the technique of large-format advertising photography, which was still new in Poland at the time. In the Labels series, she effectively expressed the importance of branding, in the works in the Cosmetics series, she combined the latest trends in consumerism, while the series of urban photographs and paintings are an ‘over-documentation’ of contemporary architectural transformations, a kind of psychogeography, a type of situationist drift. Here, abstraction meets pop art, 

criticism meets advertising, and consumerism meets a radical defiance of conformity. After 2000, Przyjemska created an artistic commentary on consumer capitalism in her works, seeking an avant-garde free of didacticism and exaltation. These works are ironic, close to third-wave feminism, marked by affect, but characterised by a distanced view of both consumption and its critique. The artist invites us into a world of neoliberal bliss, and her art says more than classical critical art. In it, we recognise ourselves and ourselves alone, not only outside the commodity economy, but also at its centre.

Artist's works in the Zachęta collection

  • Zdjęcie pracy Frontfix
    FrontfixMariola Przyjemska1996
  • Zdjęcie pracy Musik Korps
    Musik KorpsMariola Przyjemska1999
  • Zdjęcie pracy Kreta
    KretaMariola Przyjemska1999
Related media
  • Grafika obiektu: Audio description: Mariola Przyjemska. CONSUMPTION, CONSTRUCTION AND MELANCHOLIA
    mediateka / audio-description
    Audio description: Mariola Przyjemska. CONSUMPTION, CONSTRUCTION AND MELANCHOLIA
  • Grafika obiektu: 3D Exhibition: Mariola Przyjemska
    mediateka / 3D documentation
    3D Exhibition: Mariola Przyjemska
    CONSUMPTION, CONSTRUCTION AND MELANCHOLIA
  • Grafika obiektu: Mariola Przyjemska
    mediateka / posters
    Mariola Przyjemska
    Consumption, construction and melancholia
  • Grafika obiektu: Mariola Przyjemska
    mediateka / posters
    Mariola Przyjemska
    Consumption, construction and melancholia
  • Grafika obiektu: Mariola Przyjemska
    mediateka / posters
    Mariola Przyjemska
    Consumption, construction and melancholia
  • Grafika obiektu: Mariola Przyjemska
    mediateka / posters
    Mariola Przyjemska
    Consumption, construction and melancholia
Related events
  • 18.09.2022 (Sun) 12:15
    Mariola Przyjemska
    Curatorial walk-through (in Polish)
    Zachęta – National Gallery of ArtZachęta
  • 01.10.2022 (Sat) 14:00
    Екскурсія виставкою «Маріола Пшиємська. Консупція, конструкція і меланхолія» українською мовою
    (guided tour in Ukrainian)
    Захента — Національна галерея мистецтв.Захента — Національна галерея мистецтв.
  • 01.10.2022 (Sat) 16:00
    Экскурсия по выставке «Мариола Пшиемска. Консумация, конструкция и меланхолия» на русском языке
    (guided tour in Russian)
    Захента — Национальная галерея искусствЗахента — Национальная галерея искусств
  • 07.10.2022 (Fri) 17:00
    A city walk with Mariola Przyjemska
    Event held as part of the Culture Without Barriers Festival
    Meeting in front of the Green Caffè Nero Rondo ONZ (Al. Jana Pawła II 18)Meeting in front of the Green Caffè Nero Rondo ONZ (Al. Jana Pawła II 18)
  • 18.10.2022 (Tue) 17:00
    „Sklep przy głównej ulicy”
    pokaz filmu i rozmowa z Mariolą Przyjemską
    Zachęta | entrance from ul. Burschego (down the stairs)Zachęta | entrance from ul. Burschego (down the stairs)
  • 27.10.2022 (Thu) 18:00
    Feminist avant garde against neoliberal hegemony
    Natalia Sielewicz and Ewa Majewska's guided tour of Mariola Przyjemska's exhibition (in Polish)
    Zachęta – National Gallery of ArtZachęta
  • 17.11.2022 (Thu) 18:00
    Mariola Przyjemska: cosmetics and skyscrapers
    Guided tour by Camila McHugh
    Zachęta – National Gallery of ArtZachęta
  • 18.11.2022 (Fri) 12:15
    Looking/Seeing. Contemporary art and the seniors
    (in Polish)
    Zachęta – National Gallery of ArtZachęta
  • 26.11.2022 (Sat) 16:00
    Trip to the 1990s
    An event for the blind and visually impaired (in Polish)
    Zachęta – National Gallery of ArtZachęta
  • 03.12.2022 (Sat) 17:00
    MARIOLA PRZYJEMSKA. CONSUMPTION, CONSTRUCTION AND MELANCHOLY
    Saturday Art Walk
    Zachęta – National Gallery of ArtZachęta
  • 06.12.2022 (Tue) 18:00
    Tomasz Fudala's guided tour of Mariola Przyjemska's exhibition
    (in Polish)
    Zachęta – National Gallery of ArtZachęta
  • 11.12.2022 (Sun) 12:00
    Zachęta Signs!
    Family workshops ((IN POLISH SIGN LANGUAGE)
    Zachęta – National Gallery of ArtZachęta
  • 17.12.2022 (Sat) 12:30
    Workshop for families with children on the autism spectrum
    (in Polish)
    Zachęta – National Gallery of ArtZachęta
  • 18.12.2022 (Sun) 12:30
    Family workshops | Сімейні майстер-класи
    (in Polish and Ukrainian)
    Zachęta – National Gallery of ArtZachęta
  • 27.12.2022 (Tue) 18:00
    Film screening with a lecture
    (in Polish)
    Zachęta | cinema room (entrance from Burschego street)cinema room
  • 08.01.2023 (Sun) 14:00
    Finissage of the exhibition "Mariola Przyjemska. Consumption, construction and melancholy"

    Meeting with the artist (in Polish)
    Zachęta – National Gallery of ArtZachęta

Information

Mariola Przyjemska
Consumption, Construction and Melancholia
16.09.2022 – 08.01.2023

Zachęta – National Gallery of Art
pl. Małachowskiego 3, 00-916 Warsaw
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Godziny otwarcia:
Tuesday – Sunday 12–8 p.m.
Thursday – free entry
ticket office is open until 7.30 p.m.

Exhibition partner and co-publisher of the publication: