The Objects

The works of Agnieszka Polska drive the viewer to consternation. It is difficult to define their status at first glance. The Objects provoke questions about what they are: an old photograph? A work of art? Is the world represented a real one, or is it a totally convincing creation? Such questions, as disturbing as they may be, touch at the core of the concept of Agnieszka Polska’s pieces – about the works of art and their perception conditioned by our knowledge and experience.

The starting point for the artist was a set of randomly selected photographs from the 1950’s and 1960’s, to which Polska introduced fictitious computer-generated objects, scenes, or events. It is actually difficult to indicate what was the subject of the intervention, taking into consideration the fact that some of the “foreign bodies” added to the original photo can be easily considered land art. Natural environment was the field of activity for land artists, who focused mainly on interventions in the landscape. Sometimes they were in the form of monumental realizations, such as objects of many kilometers and requiring a radical transformation of the area, while in other times, they were limited to subtle and difficult to spot compositions. Polska’s method entails problems related to the application of the notion of an artwork in reference to her work. What is the work of art in her case – the arranged scene or perhaps the final effect, namely a processed photograph? It is also unclear whether the Object from the title is related to the generated item (the scene), or perhaps the photograph, whose “materiality” is the most discussed problem.

The Objects disturb and distort the perception of the viewer, though the viewer does not undermine the formula of the photographs used – that of a newspaper illustration. We will not see the traces of her intervention as the integrity of the photographs has been left intact. The dreamlike vision of the artist first destroyed a certain order so as to build one anew. The found photographs reveal their dormant potential, and turn out to be a repository of hidden plots and situations waiting to become, thus losing their original, documentary nature.

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