Krzysztof Jung. Performer
featuring Grzegorz Kowalski
curated by Karol Sienkiewicz
Feb 19 – Mar 29, 2025
The third presentation of Krzysztof Jung’s (1951–1998) work at the gallery focuses on his performances. From the mid-1970s, Jung carried out so-called threadings at Galeria Repassage in Warsaw, during which he wove web-like networks resembling spiderwebs. He entwined them around the naked bodies of participants, creating cocoons or traps. Most of these actions were dedicated to his friends. Jung’s performances will be presented in the form of photographic documentation preserved in the artist’s archive. A significant portion of the exhibited prints was produced for an exhibition about Galeria Repassage at Warsaw’s Zachęta in 1993. The photographs will be complemented by a selection of the artist’s drawings, providing additional context for his actions.
Grzegorz Kowalski was usually the photographer documenting Jung’s performances. For the current exhibition, he has prepared a dedicated work titled Excavation.
Krzysztof Jung (1951-1998) brought vitality, eroticism, and homoeroticism to the Repassage Gallery on Krakowskie Przedmieście in Warsaw. There, after completing his studies, he developed his concept of „plastic theatre”, creating a series of performances dedicated to his friends.
In the gallery space, Jung wove intricate webs of thread resembling spiderwebs. With his threading, he connected naked bodies, constructing protective cocoons or traps. In this sensual way, he explored his fascination with corporeality, interpersonal relationships, emotions, feelings, and the mutual dependencies they create. His performances also carried hidden messages addressed to specific individuals.
In 1993, the Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw held an exhibition summarizing the activity of the Repassage Gallery. At that time, Jung was responsible for arranging the room dedicated to the period when he himself managed the gallery (Repassage 2, 1978-1979). Within a separate, threaded space, he placed photographs from his own performances. The original prints, preserved in the archive, are being shown for the first time in over thirty years.
The documentation of Jung’s performances, displayed on a table in the center of the gallery, is complemented by a selection of his drawings. These works provide additional context for his performances, depicting people, places, and recurring motifs significant to the artist.
The photographic documentation of Jung’s performances at Repassage Gallery was created by Grzegorz Kowalski, who was closely associated with the gallery. As an annex to the exhibition, Kowalski has prepared a new work dedicated to his friend, entitled Excavation. Its main element is a portrait of Jung, welcoming visitors as they enter the gallery. Kowalski juxtaposes Jung’s electrifying sexuality with a memento mori reflection on the impermanence of the human body.
As part of the exhibition, Grzegorz Kowalski, a friend of Jung and the author of the documentation of Jung’s performances, created a presentation dedicated to him. It consists of two elements: a 1981 portrait of Jung printed on mirror and a short film excerpt. Kowalski used a fragment of his own statement for the documentary Imago Krzysia (2019) directed by Adam and Barbara Janisch, the son and daughter of Dorota Krawczyk-Janisch.
The filmmakers focused on Jung and the relationship between the artist and their family. Kowalski’s statement was not included in the final version of the film. In it, he recalls dreams in which Jung visited him after his death and a recurring fantasy—the need to imagine what his friend’s body might look like many years after his death.
Krzysztof Jung
Known mostly as a performer, prolific painter and portraitist, called “the painter of trees” during his lifetime, has become more celebrated over the last few years for his male nudes, intimate drawings, rarely or never shown in public, revealing his queer side and giving an insight into his private life. His works were included in the first large manifestations of LBTQ-related art, such as Ars Homo Erotica (2010), curated by Paweł Leszkowicz at the National Museum in Warsaw, and the Heritage pop-up exhibition organized as part of the Pomada 7 Queer Festival (2017). The changing reception of his works was recapped by his solo exhibitions at Salon Akademii in Warsaw (2016) and Schwules Museum in Berlin (2019). As Jung stated in his will, his friend Dorota Krawczyk-Janisch, based in Berlin, became the sole caretaker of his works after his death. For over two decades, she has been responsible for his estate, and along with his other friends, such as Wojciech Karpiński, she kept the memory of Jung, a great person and artist. From November 2021, working closely with Dorota Krawczyk-Janisch, Gunia Nowik Gallery is representing the Estate of Krzysztof Jung.
Grzegorz Kowalski
Artist and teacher, born in 1942 in Warsaw. As a sculpture student at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, Kowalski studied under Oskar Hansen and Jerzy Jarnuszkiewicz. In the 1970s, together with a group of artists deeply influenced by Hansen’s concept of Open Form, he founded Repassage Gallery in Warsaw. Treating art as a language of communication, he developed new artistic forms that incorporated the creativity of others, such as his question actions—collections of visual and textual responses to existential questions posed to a group (e.g., Could you and would you like to treat me as an object?, 1979). As a professor at his alma mater, Kowalski integrated similar collective art practices into his teaching, shaping a new generation of artists. In the 1990s, his students, including Paweł Althamer, Katarzyna Kozyra, and Artur Żmijewski, became leading figures in Polish Critical Art. He lives and works in Warsaw.