MATEUSZ SADOWSKI – It takes time

The individual exhibition of Mateusz Sadowski “It takes time” will present a broad spectrum of the artist’s works that were created in 2014. It will consist of: animation, photographic objects and large format photomontages. The new animated film, central to the exhibition, is an extension of the concept of the animated motion picture, which first appeared in the video at his solo exhibition entitled “Resonance” presented this year at Galeria Stereo. The video editing process – from video recording towards a three-dimensional object (a pile of printed video stills) – displays the artist’s formal perversity, which is actually present in all of his creations. Sadowski uses formal procedures intentionally essential: his creative activity is an affirmation of doubt. As a result, he creates works that avoid ambiguity, open, and stimulating the viewer’s perception, with no certainties, where visual bravado, wit and poetic power stand out in the foreground.

Michał Lasota

A man once spoke about how difficult it might be to explain clouds to someone who has never seen a cloud or even the sky, for that matter.

Another man once gave a talk in the shape of an icicle because he could not find any other way to reproduce the shape of a particular icicle without it melting in the process.

Another man once spoke about how in mathematics the infinity that lies between any two numbers is larger than the infinity you reach by counting from zero to infinity.

Yet another man said that if one can imagine a group of people at the same time, regardless of whether they are distant from each other right now or that it has perhaps needed time and maybe even some moving around to learn about all these people, perhaps an image can be produced where they are all together just as if they are together in one’s thoughts; obviously, he said, they don’t need to be in the actual image.

If all these people were only divided by space, he asked, would it be enough to just remove the space between them and have them side by side? Still they wouldn’t need to be there, of course.

This same man spoke about how if you have an image of half a thing, that image often has more information in it than the image of the whole thing: imagine a biology atlas in which one half of a head explains things but the whole head would make little sense.

This last man was Mateusz Sadowski. I remember wondering, while speaking to him, whether thoughts are or are not like electricity. I know very little about electricity but what I know makes me wonder if a thought needs to move in a closed circuit in order to form: if a thought can only form when there is a very clear end to it from the beginning. I imagine this as an image of a thought waiting at the finish line for a version of itself to hit the line and then, fully formed, it claims the idea.

I am not sure if it helps to imagine thoughts as electricity or as animated race horses to understand how they work, especially since it requires sending a thought along that first one to observe how it does it. I mean, I’m not sure you can really send something along that same path twice.

You would probably need to split the whole thing into at least two to make it finish two lines at a similar time. Mateusz is good at this.

I am not sure it helps to imagine this in images at all but that’s what I usually do too.

Virginija Januškevičiūtė

Mateusz Sadowski, born 1984, lives and works in Poznan. A graduate of the Department of Photography (2007) and Intermedia (2010) at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan. Winner of the “Mloda Polska scholarship” (Young Poland) granted by the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. The prize winner of the 7th edition of Samsung Art Master Award 2010. He works with videos, photographs, objects and installations. Currently he gives lectures at the Department of Photography at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan. He collaborates with Galeria Stereo.

Selected solo exhibitions:

2014
The Resonance, Galeria Stereo, Warsaw
Unplanned images, BWA, Zielona Gora
2013
Turn of events, BWA, Katowice
2012

Leak, Exhile, Berlin
I’ve seen too much, SVIT, Prague
2011
There is no such thing, Galeria Stereo, Poznan

Selected group exhibitions:

2014

As You Can See. Polish Art Today, Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw

Das stille Leben des Sammlers Kempinski, Exile, Berlin

2013

Things in Common, Art Stations Foundation, Poznan

Photography, Reconstructed, Prague Photo Biennale 3, Prague

2012:

On Demand, tegenboschvanvreden, Amsterdam

Arbeitdisziplin, Municipal Gallery Arsenał, Poznan

Will be fine, Galeria Stereo, Poznan

2011:

A Clock That Runs On Mud, Galeria Stereo, Poznan

MIR, Galeria Arsenal, Bialystok

Transilvania 2, Municipal Gallery Arsenał, Poznan