Rafal Bujnowski’s exhibition at BUNKIER SZTUKI is a retrospective of an artist who is still considered as young, but already very artistically mature. This exhibition will also present the opportunity to look problematically at his work.
The paintings of Bujnowski (a former member of the Famous "Ladnie" Group and who has recently returned from an Art in General scholarship in New York) are a particular example of painting’s analysis. The curator’s aim is to emphasize some current issues present in Bujnowski’s art. The first was to draw attention to the appropriate method of analysis suited to him and that of the oldest of art mediums - painting. The individuality of his approach consists of reproducing images almost to infinity. So in this context, the painting is not a single creation whose value relies on its uniqueness, but it is a representation of any object – most frequently an element of mass culture presented as many practically identical images. They are not, however, done mechanically but created by hand Bujnowski. In 1936, Walter Benjamin announced the crisis of the aura as a consequence of the mechanical reproduction process of photography to produce an almost infinite number of copies of particular paintings. Rafa©¯ Bujnowski, creating series of almost identical images, on the one hand proves that multiplying does not have to mean the death of the aura. On the other hand, he shows that art has escaped mechanisation because between particular images one can point out slight, but noticeable differences.
It is worth emphasising that through his artistic gestures, Bujnowski shows that he is a representative of the end of 20th century and beginning of 21st, aware of the fact that art exists in the common collective consciousness only when it is reproduced in sufficient numbers and especially on mass produced objects (mugs or other touristy souvenirs). Another aspect of the exhibition is the new medium, video, which has been present in Bujnowski’s works for some time now. The artist plays a game between traditionally understood painting (a representation on canvas in paint) and the video image (the result of a mass of electrons). Undertaking this comparative game, he takes on the most basic academic themes – the nude, still life and landscape, he films them instead of painting them. In this way, classical themes gain a different look in a new medium.
This diversion of interest, however, does not stem from a critical attitude or from "disbelief" in painting since video and easel painting in his work complement each other perfectly and mutually explain and intensify the spectator’s impression.
The third aspect of the exhibition is a reflection on the role and definition of the painter, the painter who is simultaneously an artist and a craftsman. Five hundred years ago Leonardo da Vinci, in a letter to Duke Sforza recommending his services and applying for a position at the court, wrote that he could create fortifications, occasional decorations and if necessary he could also paint a portrait. Since the romantic uprising times have changed, attitudes towards artists too, but Rafal Bujnowski does not only paint pictures but also, if needs be, he will paint the walls of the Gallery itself; which he proved by renovating the façade of BUNKIER SZTUKI with great commitment as part of the "POPelita" exhibition in 2001. The artist is also active in graphic design, which for years has been considered as a functional art. He conducts a dialogue using functional definitions "drawing portraits" of objects in the series "Grocery and industrial articles" often using canvas of the same shape as the reproduced articles. The element of "utility" is also present in his "Paintings for an Interior", where he takes the role of a modern "trendsetter" not only by designing the most suitable paintings for that particular domestic interior (a wedding portrait for the bedroom or still life with a lemon for the kitchen), but also by showing where the particular representations should be placed.
As Marek Krajewski writes in the exhibition catalogue, Bujnowski’s actions are accompanied by the need to create material objects, which can in a way exists as certain metaobjects constructed in such a way that they would primarily be used to think about the things that fill our world. The exhibition, presenting representations of objects, portraits and fragments of landscape, is perfect proof of good painting.
The exhibition will be moved to Kunstverein für die Rheinlande and Westfalen in Düsseldorf [7th of May – 11th of June 2005] and be part of the Polish Year programme in Germany, organised by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute.
Rafal Bujnowski (born in 1974) – painter, graphic artist and recently video artist. In the years 1993-1995, he studied at the Architecture Faculty of the Krakow Technical University, then, in the years 1995-2000 at the Graphics Faculty of the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. From 1994 till 2001, he was active in the £adnie Group and at the same time, from 1998 till 2001, he led the Otwarta (Open) Gallery In Krakow, where he exhibited, among others, posters with objects of every day use; using a pattern close to the advertisement of supermarket products, which, however, could not be bought. He is interested in art entering the public space and in the issues of the commercialisation of art and depriving its non-material value. He is documenting the transformation of the piece of art into an advertisement or an object. His favorite method is repeating an object in a different technique (oil painting, lino-cut). He tries to purify his art from individualisms. His paintings resemble, for example, brick or planks, and at the same time they can be perceived as examples of abstract or conceptual painting. In the beginning, he sold them at the price of the "real goods" they represented. He also undertakes artistic actions, for example, renovating the gallery’s façade.
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