MIROSŁAW BAŁKA AND KATARZYNA KRAKOWIAK. Tomorrow Will Never Come

The artists took the reflection on the sense of incertitude we experience in response to a world that is changing at increasingly fast speed as the point of departure for their project. It also involves the question of possibilities of articulating our needs and anxieties. We all witness words being robbed of their meanings in public space. Aggression, demagogy and deceit have become constant elements of media and political discourse. Every day, new words and catch phrases appear in the mediasphere, instruments for verbal exertion of pressure and achievement of domination over other people, which they are capable of due to the symbolic violence they contain. Omnipresent signs manipulate our emotions and needs, their purpose being to incessantly provoke us to react.

Katarzyna Krakowiak and Mirosław Bałka’s project addresses the problem of the meaning of words and signs which we use for communication, but fail to communicate anything with. The title of the exhibition implies the impossibility of further narration, of the coming of the future as the present day is denied. It also comprises the paradox of time which is impossible to be determined: ‘tomorrow’ never comes because our perspective forces us to define every moment as present. In a world without the future, in a reality doomed to an eternal now, we are faced with the impossibility of transgression or transcendence. Paradoxes related to images of the future have been best described by Richard Barbrook, the author of Imaginary Futures, who chose the following titles for its chapters: “The future is what it used to be” and “Those who forget the future are condemned to repeat it.”[*] Barbrook demonstrates that the future is a function of the past, that images of tomorrow are a theoretical, political and propagandist construct which can, in fact, never come true to the extent we expect it to.

Tomorrow Will Never Come is the first project carried out together by Katarzyna Krakowiak and Mirosław Bałka. The process that has led to this exhibition, the search for a common area that opens up new possibilities rather than being a compromise, is an integral part of the show. This is a dialogue between two similar, and yet diverse, artistic attitudes. Katarzyna Krakowiak mostly creates sound installations situated in the context of architecture and urban life. One of her latest pieces was located in the challenging and fascinating interior of the Philharmonic in Szczecin (2016). Mirosław Bałka is known as a creator of sculptures, drawings, videos, as well as monumental works exhibited at Tate Modern in London or the memorial to the victims of the Estonia ferry catastrophe in Stockholm (1998). The display at the Arsenal Gallery in Białystok is a result of collaboration founded upon the dynamics of similarities and differences. This might be chiefly a dialogue between two artists, working together to create a work, negotiating various ideas, testing diverse solutions, looking for a new quality which will be more than an outcome of their habitual practices so far as it will produce a new constellation of meanings. Known for their minimalist pieces, the artists are going to present a work comprising a series of concise, puzzling and poetic slogans in the form of neon tubes. Particular words, sequences of letters and signs are accompanied by sound coupled with neon lights. The end product is a multimedia installation, a composition of visual and sound signals, and its location in a specific place constitutes a major aspect of the work. Displayed neon signs can be interpreted in at least three different ways: as a chaotic polyphony of voices, as a monologue, or as a dialogue. The simple form allows the viewer to freely move among signals and construct meanings that may apply to the experience of every one of us.
 
Marek Wasilewski
translated from Polish by Monika Ujma
 

[*] R. Barbrook, Imaginary Futures: From Thinking Machines to the Global Village, London 2007.

Related event:

November 26, 2016 – a guided tour of the exhibition with an exhibition curator and artists

The event will be adapted to the needs of hearing impaired or deaf people.

Interpreted by: Justyna Nowosadko

Admission is free.