Wonderful life

The video Wonderful life is part of a series titled Life is a story, made by Izabella Gustowska in the years 2002–2006. The structure of the project is close to that of a story within a story, composed of several autonomous works. In most of them we see similar motifs, such as hands touching a vessel, moving lips and a rolling glass ball. Gustowska’s stories are autobiographical narratives, records of emotions expressed by means of the language of film images. The artist directs the eye of the camera towards the inside, while the cold instrument is used for recording personal observations.

The main character in Wonderful life is Gucio, a wirehaired dachshund wagging its tail to the rhythm of What a Wonderful World, sung by Louis Armstrong. Gustowska takes the dog out for a walk, then multiplies and filters its behavior through a violet light. The image is synchronized with the lyrics of the song – the visual and verbal dimensions of the work have elements of enchantment with the uniqueness of seemingly ordinary situations. The story, kept in slow motion, is chopped up by inserted frames in green hues and accompanying comments. When the phrase Nothing about her childhood/ … television/ … friend/ … cat appears, we see scenes from daily life intertwined with footage of a boxing match, a shot of a jumping child, or a stretching cat. Privacy is penetrated by the outside world, the green and violet filters make the work less real and impose a mood of reflection, revealing at the same time the sphere of the intimate experience of reality.

This poetic video is a hermetic work. The fragmented motifs are enveloped in a dreamlike fog while the shots make up a mosaic balancing on the verge of a dream and reality. Memories become part of the present, and private iconography is reflected in universal words and visual motifs. The momentary belief that a part can be the key to learning the entirety is replaced by the conviction that the pars pro toto formula is simply not enough. The archive of the images offered by the artist lets one in on just a small piece of her personality.

Izabela Kopania