Anna Czaban
Difficult, not easy. On the works of Urszula Tarasiewicz Simple, plain and ascetic compositions, or quite the opposite – full of details, colourful – frames of Urszula Tarasiewicz’s works depict the world as a place which is not as much absurd as it is pleasant and charming. As the artist says: ‘Stories which can be shown in photos appear on their own, they just need to be encouraged to get out of the photo frames.’ However, Tarasiewicz, doesn’t arrange scenes specially for her works. Instead, she carefully chooses frames, presents the reality and observes it attentively. As she admits, she doesn’t take many photographs, but when something catches her attention, she takes one or two photos and goes on. And what is it that draws the attention of Urszula Tarasiewicz? ‘It needs to be something that makes it difficult, not easy, ugly, but not too ugly, simple but not common,’ she says. When Tarasiewicz photographs space (she crops it to be in the centre of the photo because, as she states, it is the only balance in her life), she looks for peace in it, not for melancholy or sorrow. There is no tragedy, darkness or drama. ‘Here, space appears to be a monument which gives birth to everything in the world, it imposes order and joins everything together.’ When we look at the artist’s photographs, we can see the world as a mosaic of situations which at first seem to be totally separate, but as a whole they shape the reality we live in. Moreover, each photograph presents a story, or rather an anecdote. These are photographic puzzles. Tarasiewicz searches for absurdities and records them in aesthetically and compositionally planned photographic images. For instance, she took a photograph depicting a cast Pope’s head plunged in snow, with a hand raised not in the gesture of salute but as if in search of rescue. Or the very aesthetic work Toadstool (Muchomorek), in the foreground of which there is a toadstool made of concrete and coloured sheet metal, a landmark of allotment gardens and the most popular decoration of lawns between grey blocks of flats in the times of communism in Poland. A bitter fruit of Polish ingenuity in the spirit of Polish handyman guru Adam Słodowy and his motto ‘Do it yourself.’ Sentiment
intertwines with an interesting story as the toadstool presented against a winter landscape is actually a well standing alone in the middle of a field. Before it became a colourful mushroom, it used to be an accident site and it posed a real danger to the inhabitants of the nearby village who do not keep away from alcohol. Covering the well with a colourful hat (made of dotted red metal sheet) turned out to be not only an effective but also visually attractive solution. The absurd character of the situation is also a bit sentimental. The photographs present spaces filled with lyrical everyday life, especially visible in the cycle from Poland. The artist finds the remains of the communist farce (images of market stalls arranged on trees, fences, in car boots and plastic foil put on mud, where you could buy cult fur coats and the dream of all teenagers of that time – ‘Relax’ boots). Here, we can also find the colourful landscapes of the beginnings of capitalism in the 1990s (e.g. fast food stalls totally devoid of aesthetic elegance). Urszula Tarasiewicz is fascinated with the diversity she sees around her. As she says, ‘Poland is an inspiring place for a photographer. Everyone tells different stories about it because everyone leads different life here, looking for the reason to stay here.’ It turns out that the Polish nation has rich imagination and continually evokes interest. Just as people themselves do. In Tarasiewicz’s photographs we can see many such phenomena registered all around the world. She looks at the margins of reality – dirty, kitschy and grotesque social spaces. The artist describes them as being on the borderline of ‘an objective documentary and a subjective observation.’ The project Photo Wallpapers (Fototapety) was inspired by the author’s fondness towards the times of childhood, too. It
page 52 was her BA seminar project at The Polish National Film, Television and Theatre School in Łódź under the supervision of Professor Wojciech Prażmowski, and it is still being developed. Against black and white photography and the rules of correct reportage and fashion photography (the fields in which The Film School specialises), Urszula Tarasiewicz decided to raise the subject of utmost kitsch. The starting point was a photo wallpaper – the symbol of wealth of the owners of cramped living-rooms in their two-bedroom flats in Poland of the 1980s. Nowadays, they are associated with a lack of good taste and the symbol of total kitsch. There used to be only a few stock photographs in use (such as a sunset with a palm tree, an autumn forest, a mountain lake, an Arabic palace or Japanese waterfalls) was the reason why this marvellous product disappeared before its career really started. The artist decided to revive this trend but also play with conventions of both photography and the context in which this medium was used. Instead of a romantic sunset at a warm Mediterranean beach, there is a sad palm from San Francisco or pale overweight bodies sunbathing at the grey Baltic seashore; instead of the gold Polish autumn – hazy marshland and mud. There is a bit of the city mess or the opposite – empty asphalt roads. In their own, different way they are equally romantic, charming with their nostalgic character. Meant to encourage relax and joy, they can compete with the mass produced photo interior design by IKEA. Urszula Tarasiewicz would like to introduce this kind of art to public spaces such as hospitals, common rooms, hospices, places devoid of any kind of thoughtful planning of aesthetic design. They scare with old wall calendars and creased postcards squeezed into old frames. In this case, this is a real fight for beauty and mental health. It seems that the main assumption of the author’s work is to unblock the canals of beauty and develop its, still too poor, infrastructure.
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