ANNA KONIK – Our Lady’s Forever

A video- intallation “Our Lady’s Forever” by Anna Konika that will be presented at the exhibition, was inspired by a drama written by a young man, who suffered from schizophrenia and whom the artist met few years ago.

The drama presents a story of unfulfilled love and inconsolable loneliness, the story of anticipation. It is a vision of a dream to bodily metamorphose into the person loved.

“The drama was too surrealistic and impossible to be translated, that is why I have decided to realize my story about this drama, the documentation of a place and the activities of actors” – says the artist
 
The film was shot in “Our Lady’s Hospital”, a deserted mental hospital, in May 2006 during Anna Konik’s four month artistic residence in Cork, Ireland. On the basis of the drama the artist created a film, intended for a simultaneous projection on several screens.

The film is a story without the beginning or the end; it shows two people – a woman and a man – nicknamed A. and M., who keep looking for each other, rambling down the corridors and rooms of the decaying hospital. Images in the film place on the verge of reality and abstraction, real world and imagination, and time passes as if in slow motion. The scenes glow with an extraordinary, bluish light. The whole is mysterious and indefinite.

Project “Our Lady’s Forever” refers to Anna Konik’s previous realizations, including “Toys”, “Transparency”, or “In the middle of the way”, which tackle the problem of alienation, different sensitivity, and loneliness.”

Anna Konik (born in 1974) studied in the Faculty of Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw in the atelier of professor Grzegorz Kowalski and professor Krzysztof M. Bednarski [she obtained a diplom in 2000].
Konik makes video installations, and her practice combines video semi-documentray, installations, performance, and sculpture.

Selected solo exhibitions

2011    Atlas Sztuki, Lodz, Poland
          Our Lady´s Forever, Polish Institute in Düsseldorf, Germany
 
2010    The Villa of the Entranced, Max Libermann Haus, Berlin, Germany

2009    Our Lady´s Forever, Stadtische Galerie Wolfsburg, Germany

2008    Another Side of the Time, Eboran Gallery, Salzburg, Germany
           Our Lady´s Forever, Kronika Gallery, Bytom, Poland
           Our Lady´s Forever, XS Gallery, Kielce, Poland
 
2007    Our Lady’s Forever, Eugen Lend Gallery, Graz, Austria
            In the Middle of the Way, Passagengalerie, Künstlerhaus Vienna, Austria
           Our Lady’s Forever, Zacheta National Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
           Augustin story / In the Middle of the Way, Austrian Cultural Forum, Warsaw, Poland
 
2005    In the Middle of the Way, SPACES Gallery, Cleveland, United States
           Voiceless, Play Gallery, Berlin, Germany
 
2004    Transparency, Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany
           Territories of Presence – Transparency, CCA Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, Poland
 
2003    In the Middle of the Way, Artist in Residence – Leube, Salzburg, Germany
           (exhibition with Krzysztof M. Bednarski)
 
2000    Disco Relaxation – Windows Gallery, CCA Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, Poland
 
Selected group exhibitions
 
2010       Design of the In/Human, Württembergische Kunstverein, Stuttgart, Germany
              Künstler in der Kunst Gesellschaft, Motorenhalle, Dresden, Germany
              I’m Not There, Kunstverein Hildesheim, Hildesheim, Germany
              Views 2009, WRO Art Center, Wroclaw, Poland
 
2009       Working Title. Tytul Roboczy, CCA Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, Poland
              Views 2009, Zacheta National Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
              On Tectonics of History, International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP), New York, USA
              The artist in the (art) society, Kunsthalle Palazzo, Basel, Switzerland
              Collection 5, CCA Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, Poland
              Isoleted, The Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast, Ireland
 
2008      Video Reflex, Synagogue- Cetre of Contemporary art, Trnava, Slovakia
              Teleportation and other Hybrids,Galerie U7, Frankfurt, Germany
              Double Perception, lokal_30, LISTE’08, Basel, Switzerland
              Souvenirs: Repressed Historical and Personal Memory in Polish and Israeli Art,
              The Haim Herzog Center, Univesity Ben Guriona, Israel
              Kraj: the Art of Artists of Polish Origins, Center of Contemporary Art, Opole, Poland
              Depression, Bunkier Sztuki, Kracow, Poland
 
2007       Artysci polecaja sie nawzajem, Gallery Appendix 2, Warsaw, Poland
              Exitus – tod alltaglich, Künstlerhaus, Vienna
              Our Lady’s Forever: European Forum for Emerging Creation, Pépinieres, Luxembourg
              Depression, Galeria Arsenal, Bialystok, Poland
              The Crawford Municipal Art Gallery, Ireland
              Young from Warsaw, Centre of Art Promotion, Lodz, Poland
              On Tectonics of History, Wyspa Institute of Art, Gdansk, Poland
 
2006      ArtPoint Gallery, Vienna
             Intimations of the Past, The Hungarian University of Fine Arts
              Zur Tektonik der Geschichte, Emil Filla Gallery, Usti nad Labem, Czech Republic
             Umwandlung-Transformation as a creation process, Berlin
             (Appendix to the 4th Berlin Biennale)
             Approaching the Other, Observation and Intervention – Xth Biennial Exhibition of Art
             “In view of Values” Centre of Art Promotion, Lodz, Poland
 
2005     Approaching the Other, Observation and Intervention – Xth Biennial Exhibition of Art
            “In view of Values” Gallery of Contemporary Art,
            Office of Artistic Exhibitions, Katowice, Poland
            Zur Tektonik der Geschichte, Forum Stadtpark, Graz, Austria
            Polka, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, Poland
             P.S. Beyond the Red Horizon – Art of the Late 20th Century–
            National Centre for Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia
 
2004     Beyond the Red Horizon – Art of the Late 20th Century – CCA
            Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, Poland
            Sculptors as Photographers– Xawery Dunikowski Museum at Królikarnia Pala