Teresa Gierzyńska
Art Basel Miami Beach
Dec 6 – 8, 2024
If you are interested in a preview of the presented works, please do contact us via info@gunianowikgallery.com.
For the Survey Sector, Gunia Nowik Gallery proposes a solo presentation combining a selection from three key series: About Her, Black, White, and Green, and The Essence of Things by the Polish artist Teresa Gierzyńska (born in 1947).
Gierzyńska’s practice oscillates around themes of female identity, one’s own corporeality, the erotic and psychological tension in relationships, and the roles marked by society for women. Though she began her career as a sculptor, since the 1960s photography and its duplication techniques such as thermocopy or photocopy have become the artist’s main tools. Experimentation plays an important role in the artist’s work – she often colors prints with aniline dye, draws on them with crayons, or adds stamps, making them unique; Gierzyńska also developed her own technique called ‘press-out’, which she utilized to create The Essence of Things series.
The About Her series (1976 – 1995) forms the axis of Gierzyńska’s practice; a selection of its photographs is presented in the booth as an installation on the frontal wall, composed by the artist herself. About Her employs photography as a record of the artist’s performative practice, in which she implements her own image through a feminist lens to both record her emotional experiences and shifts, as well as create universal situations with which women of different ages and backgrounds can identify. Meaningful titles are given, often using adjectives, which describe women’s state of mind e.g., Under Pressure, Embarrassed, Awaiting, Sleepy, Caresses, Mature, Alone, Unavailable, and Abandoned. Gierzyńska often composed the About Her series together with the cycle Black, White, and Green (1984 – 1994). For the Survey presentation the artist has selected the blue and green aniline-dyed works, where she photographed nature and used color as a representation of moods and emotions.
The installation on the main wall is completed with a selection of works from the series The Essence of Things (1973 – 1975), Gierzyńska’s first attempt devoted to female representation, in which she played with objectifying depictions of women as targets of desire, using motifs of multiplied faces of female models or fragments of their bodies. She confronted the ideas, well established in pop culture, about the banality of female desires and needs, hence the ironic title of the cycle. While working on the series, she experimented with the ‘press-out’ technique, based on imprinting clippings from colored newspapers onto paper using chemical reagents and a printing press. This presentation of three of Gierzyńska’s most important cycles introduces her work in a coherent, retrospective-like way. These pieces from the 1970s – 1990s, carefully selected together with the artist, offer an overview of her practice and investigate themes revolving around female identity and states of being. Her feminist lens and introspective view of women’s lives and inner worlds continues to be relevant and powerful even today. Teresa Gierzyńska’s practice has been rediscovered in recent years and celebrated to high acclaim today.
Finally seen in the international context, besides Polish museums, collections like The Art Institute in Chicago, the Centre Pompidou, Kunsthaus Zürich, and Kontakt. The Art Collection of Erste Group and ERSTE Foundation in Vienna have acquired the artist’s work. Further, Teresa’s pieces were recently shown at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, MN as part of the groundbreaking group show Multiple Realities: Experimental Art in the Eastern Bloc, 1960s–1980s, which travels to the Phoenix Art Museum and Vancouver Art Gallery later this year. The presentation of Gierzyńska’s work at Art Basel Miami Beach 2024 would provide the platform needed for her practice to be uncovered for a new audience in the broader context.