"By observing the surrounding, in the moment of conscious seeing one might discover absurdity. This absurdity is a contradiction of what we think is common. In fact it is a common absurdity that surrounds us. How to define our position in relationship to what surrounds us; within what seems to be real? Objects are placed in the city as signs in order to guide or remind the public audience. They stand at the threshold between being icons, and being unnoticed due to the everyday ignorance of their viewers. Even if unnoticed they dictate our movement in space. We are surrounded by ready-man-made objects, which after being photographed become second-hand objects depraved of their space. I see a strange dependence of things on things and relations on relations, facing objects in the strictness of their forms. They seem to be codes, but might be none."
Texts - Jean-Luc Nancy and Alexander Garcia Düttmann about the series `Ideogram` 2007-2009 from the Catalogue "Picking up/Bouncing back", Royal College of Art, London 2010.
Ivory tower, the neck of Shulamith, a tower removed from the world, rejected, exiled.
"A precious substance, once called elephantine, reputed to be of a perfect whiteness and of a singularly unctuous hardness, a mine full of jewels, of coral or gemstones. Who knows how it became the material of a tower where those who withdraw from the world, who disdain the world or quite simply ignore it, isolate or even enclose themselves? Every tower becomes an ivory tower - but the elephants, they disappear." Jean-Luc Nancy
White elephants.
"Why do ivory towers have such a bad reputation? Does one not need an image to discover the world? Without such an image, the world swallows me and I make no discoveries at all. Photography tells me not to be afraid of the ivory tower. That’s the place where the portrait of the photographer as an artist is made." Alexander Garcia Duettmann
Born 1979, Warsaw, Poland. Lives and works in London and Essen.
Education:
2008-2010 Royal College of Art, London
2000-2007 Folkwang University of Arts, Essen
2004 Ecole Superieure d'Arts Graphiques et d'Architecture Interieure, Paris
Upcoming shows:
25 February - 29 April 2012
Der Mensch und seine Obiekte, Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany
Selected Projects:
2011, Galeria DAP, Warsaw, Poland
2011, I Pity Inanimate Objects, Galleries Goldstein at Goodhood, London, 810 Senses, London, UK
2011, Aperture Gallery, New York, USA
2011, Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art (as part of the Regeneration 2 Touring), Budapest, Hungary
2010 Objet Trouvé, WIDMER& THEODORIDIS contemporary, Zürich, Schwitzerland
2010 New Contemporaries 2010, ICA, London
2010, reGeneration 2, Centre Gallery, Miami Dade College, Miami, USA
2010, reGeneration 2, Galleria Carla Sozzani, Milan, Italy
2010, Women in Art Photography UK, Humble Arts Foundation, Taschen Store, London, UK
2010, New Contemporaries 2010, A Foundation, Liverpool, UK
2010, Pingyao International Photography Festival – reGeneration 2, Pingyao, China
2010, Menos Tiempo que lugar, Instituto Cultural Peruano Norteamericano, Lima, Peru
2010, Summer Show 2010, Hoopers Gallery, London, UK
2010, Rencontres d’Arles – reGeneration 2, Arles, France
2010, reGeneration 2, Musee de l’Elysee, Lausanne, France
2010, Degree Show, Royal College of Art, London, UK
2010, Prix Leica 09, Le Laboratoire, Paris, France
2010, Teaching Photography, Folkwang Museum, Essen, Germany
2010, Menos Tiempo que lugar, Palacio National de las Artes, Buenos Aires, Argentina
2010, Damenwahl, Ku¨nstlerhaus Dortmund, Dortmund, Germany
2009 Galerie AllerArt, Bludenz, Austria
