Agnieszka Mastalerz

Portfolio

NIGHT FLIGHTVideo, loop, 2019

The work touches upon ways of passing and sustaining data. It refers to Gustawa Jarecka - a writer and an archivist, who was supposed to translate Night Flight by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - story about a pilot responsible for transporting mail by plane.

I asked the female performer to become a medium herself. During the recording she was hearing technology sounds and her task was to dialogue with them without words.

Woman: Monika ŁopuszyńskaSound: Żaneta RydzewskaDirectors of Photography: Wawrzyniec Skoczylas,

       Michał Szaranowicz

The video was presented in the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw (PL), 2019, Stary Browar in Poznań (PL), 2019, as well as at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Kalisz (PL), 2019.

The  project  was  financially  supported  by Greater  Poland Voivodeship.

Night Flight, 2019, video still, vimeo.com/agnieszkamastalerz/flight

BLOODSTREAMInstallation, thermal wire, 2019

Bloodstream refers to floating movement of employees within Spectra building. In a significant communication route we put a symbolic blue vein made out of thermal wire and connected it with a wall of the company premises. The shape of the installation resembled a topologist’s sine curve used in the study of continua. By using a thin line and the particular color we wanted to reflect on Edward Krasiński whose works are in the Starak Family Foundation’s collection.

While going through the passageway, perception of this organic system changed. It was possible to touch the cable and feel the energy dependent on ambient temperature.

Duo  work  with  Michał  Szaranowicz  for  the  Starak  Family  Foundation,  presented  in  the Spectra Art Space in Warsaw (PL), 2019.

Bloodstream, Agnieszka Mastalerz, Michał Szaranowicz, 2019, installation view

H (RECONSTRUCTION OF POSITION)Video, loop, 2018

The work reconstructs the positions visible on the archival photographs found in Neuengamme, Hamburg. As opposed to the documented event, in the video there is no one who influences the girl’s posture by holding her body - she repeats the choreography after somebody who is standing behind the camera.

Girl: Maria KamińskaChoreography: Magdalena FejdaszDirector of Photography: Krzysztof WernerSound: Żaneta RydzewskaLocation: Bersohn and Bauman Children’s Hospital in Warsaw

The video was presented i.a. in the Three Plagues exhibiton in the Labirynt Gallery in Lublin (PL), 2019.

The project was financially supported by Masovian Voivodeship.

H(Reconstruction of Position)

2018, video stillsvimeo.com/agnieszkamastalerz/rekonstrukcjafgh

SLUICE3-channel video installation, oyster shells, 2018

In Warsaw, on the east bank of the Vistula, across the river from the Museum of Modern Art an investment Port Praski (eng. Praga Harbour) is being realized. 1885-2012 the area serves as a harbour surrounded by rather poor tenement buildings and a green wasteland, there was a slaughterhouse, too. The ambitious, emerging housing development should change the place’s aura for a European-class district (the architects even refer to London City). The investment cannot be finished until a water lock is built.

In our work we point out a lock’s function - as a machine that changes level of something that goes through it.

Master’s degree duo work with Michał Szaranowicz realised in Mirosław Bałka Studio of Spatial Activities, presented in the Komputer Gallery in Warsaw (PL), 2018 and MOS Gorzów Wielkopolski (PL), 2020.

Sluice, Agnieszka Mastalerz, Michał Szaranowicz, 2018, documentation: vimeo.com/agnieszkamastalerz/sluice

SluiceAgnieszka Mastalerz, Michał Szaranowicz, 2018documentation: vimeo.com/agnieszkamastalerz/sluice

PRIMARY SWARMVideo (loop), digital photograph, 2020- continuation of SLUICE (2018)

From Swarm in (Non-)Motion - text by Anna Ptak:

Swarm relies on an event developing in a given time. A group of Explorers traverses a cocoon-like space. Its rounded shape defines  the manner of movement. The space on  the outside plays  the  role of  the queen bee. The figures look as if they had to learn to walk anew: slow-paced movement, careful gesture, the absorbing hole of the turbine where the eponymous swarm thrusts into (...). The other image, however, placed on the opposite side of the gallery, though belonging to that part of the cycle, counterpoints the adventurous nature of this journey. It is a photograph presenting an antihero: a  child mannequin whose movement  is being analysed. Here,  this  is how  the movement occurs. An infantile body’s single achievement of acquiring the abilities to move, of defying the gravity and oneselve’s idleness is framed by a photograph, an anthropometric device that photography proves itself to be.

Duo work with Michał Szaranowicz presented in MOS Gorzów Wielkopolski (PL), 2020.

The project was financially supported by Polish Society of Authors and Composers (ZAiKS).

Primary Swarm, Agnieszka Mastalerz, Michał Szaranowicz, 2020, video stillsvimeo.com/agnieszkamastalerz/primaryswarm

100x120cm, digital print on dibond, archive paper: Hahnemühle Photo Rag Pearl 320gsm

Trajectory of Bodies2018, documentation of action

phot. Agnieszka Mastalerz, Michał Szaranowicz

TRAJECTORY OF BODIESPerformative action, 2018

Electronic readers have been installed in all buildings of the ERGO Group, which employees use when entering or leaving company premises. With a personal card, the system can identify the employee and record the exact time of work.

I chose dreams and thoughts as the sphere of life that is unpredictable, and escapes monitoring and examination with the technical capabilities of ERGO Hestia as insurer and employer. I focused on the relation between the corporation and the individual. I was interested in control and privacy, risk management and the limits of predictability. I wanted to move away from the digitization of data and image.

I asked ERGO Hestia Group employees to write down any dream they remembered. The only requirement was that the report be handwritten and anonymous. 2624 people were informed about the action.

The card  registration system was switched off  for one day and 40 boxes were placed next  to  the  telematics  readers. I received 232 responses.

The outcomes of the action were presented at the exhibition of the finalists of the 17. Hestia Artistic Journey Competition,

in the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (PL), 2018.

Currently in the ERGO Hestia Group’s collection.

Play Down, 2017, video, 00:02:31vimeo.com/agnieszkamastalerz/playdown

Play Down, 2017, digital photograph, 100x150cm

PLAY DOWNVideo, digital photograph, 2017

Registration of semen collection from a stallion to using it in artificial insemination. 

The work was presented at the exhibition VISIO. Moving Images After Post-Internet curated by Leonardo Bigazzi in Palazzo Strozzi, Florence (IT), 2019, during the 9. Polish Biennale of Young Art Fish Eye at the Baltic Gallery of Contemporary Art in Słupsk (PL), 2017, as well as in The Fort Institute of Photography in Warsaw (PL), 2017.

Courtesy of Wechta Stallion Station.

UNTITLED (REMOTE CONTROL)Thermograms, 2017

Topographic series of thermograms featuring places in Warsaw, Poland, where political decisions are being/have been being made.  The  way  of  depicting  deflects  relation  between  state  and  an individual, diverts direction of observation.

Thermography detects radiation in the long-infrared range and records temperature emitted by objects. Due to a thermographic camera used in a project, construction of the significant, influential buildings, the inside of their organisms as well as their tissues, became visible.

The work was presented at the exhibition of the finalists of the 16. Hestia Artistic Journey Competition (laureate) in the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (PL), 2017, as well as within Immoblized - show at Fondation Hippocrène, Paris (FR), 2018, promoting the emerging art scene in Poland.

Currently in the ERGO Hestia Group’s collection.

Untitled (Remote Control)2017, thermograms, 30x40cm

Untitled (Remote Control), 20179 x 30x40cm, digital print on dibond, archive paper: Moab Entrada Natural Rag 190gsm

The exhibition of the finalists of the 16. Hestia Artistic Journey Competition.Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (PL), 2017; phot. Piotr Litwic

DISCIPLINARY MECHANISMSPhotographs, videos, 2016

By analyzing the shape and material of hunting gear, the work examines the oppressiveness of environment geometrization, it  also  looks  at  the  analogy  between  hunting  and  photography  –  between  fire  arms  and  a  camera,  appropriating  through firing a shot and capturing within a  frame, pulling  the  trigger and pushing  the shutter  release button, between  the moment of entrapping and recording. The aim of the project was to portray disciplinary mechanisms, the structure of disciplinary forms and supervision processes in a neutral point of view.

In the context of the given works, the term mechanism might be interpreted in two ways – either as a structure mechanism which leads directly to real subjection or as a device mechanism that creates a subconscious, hierarchical relationship between the observer and the observed. An example of a structure mechanism is a live trap, whereas a film recorded with a trail camera is an example of a device mechanism.

By comparing individual devices according to their size, shape, material and modus operandi, the project poses the question about the limits of interference in freedom.

Grand Prix at 12. Inspirations Festival in TRAFO Center for Contemporary Art in Szczecin (PL), 2017.

Untitled (Live Traps for Rodents), 2016, digital photographs, 2 x 70x100cm

Untitled (Fish Net), 2016, video, loop, vimeo.com/agnieszkamastalerz/net

Untitled (Trail Camera), 2016, video, loopvimeo.com/agnieszkamastalerz/camera

Untitled (Net for Birds, Live Trap for Bisons, Pheromone Traps)2016, large-format photographs, 3 x 80x100cm

EDUCATION2019 - Candice Breitz/ Eli Corti as studio, Hochschule für bildende Künste, Braunschweig2013-2018 - BA, MA - Media Department, Academy of Fine Arts, Warsaw (diploma in the Studio of Spatial Activities of Mirosław Bałka) 2017/18 - Photoclass by Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin, Hochschule für bildende Künste, Hamburg (Erasmus scholarship) 2012-2015 - BA - Cultural Studies, University of Warsaw

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS2020-05 - Proposals for a show, Wschód Gallery, Warsaw (curated by Jan Domicz)2020-02 - Primary Swarm, MOS Gorzów2020-01 - Rundgang, Hochschule für bildende Künste, Braunschweig (studio of Candice Breitz/ Eli Corti as)2019-12 - below zero, Industra, Brno2019-12 - auf begehren, St dtische Galerie, Hannover 2019-11 - New Translation, Kas rne/ Kulturpark, Ko ice2019-11 - VISIO. Moving Images After Post-Internet, Palazzo Strozzi, Florence (curated by Leonardo Bigazzi)2019-09 - Young Polish Video Art ists, Festival Mondial des Cin mas Sauvages, Brussels2019-09 - Three Plagues, Labirynt Gallery, Lublin2019-06 - Concealed, Survival Art Review, Wrocław2019-05 - Night Flight, Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw2019-05 - Atmosphere, Stary Browar, Poznań2019-01 - Bloodstream, SOON_ by Starak Family Foundation, Spectra Art Space, Warsaw2018-09 - SLUICE, Komputer Gallery, Warsaw2018-06 - We Could Be Heroes, Królikarnia (National Museum), Warsaw

2018-06 - Phototriennale, Deichtorhallen, Hamburg2018-04 - Immobilized. Focus on the emerging art scene in Poland, Fondation Hippocrène, Paris

2018-01 - ICH - Intangible Cultural Heritage, Hochschule für bildende Künste, Hamburg2018-01 - Landscapes of the Anthropocene, Baltic Gallery of Contemporary Art, Słupsk2017-12 - exhibition of the finalists of the 7. Grey House Foundation Competition, Cracow

2017-11 - Art Future/ Future Revolution, Art Academy of Latvia, Riga2017-09 - exhibition of the finalists of the 9. Polish Biennale of Young Art, Baltic Gallery of Contemporary Art, Słupsk2017-06 - Breathtaking, TRAFO Center of Contemporary Art, Szczecin

2017-06 - exhibition of the finalists of the 16. Hestia Artistic Journey competition, Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw2017-06 - Nothing Happens, The Fort Institute of Photography, Warsaw

2017-05 - Tarnów, BWA Gallery of Contemporary Art, Tarnów2017-04 - Deep Water, Gdańsk City Gallery, Gdańsk2017-01 - M D M, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw2016-12 - S1_92537, Otwock Studio, Warsaw (curated by Kasia Redzisz)

AWARDS AND SCHOLARSHIPS2020-01 - Visegrad Artist Residency Program - Visual & Sounds Arts2019-10 - DAAD Scholarship for Foreign Graduates in the Fields of Fine Art for 2019/20 2019-05 - Made in Art Foundation Scholarship Program for Young Polish Artists2019-03 - scholarship from Polish Society of Authors and Composers (ZAiKS)2017-12 - Scholarship of the Marshal of the Masovian Voivodeship2017-10 - 9. Polish Biennale of Young Art Fish Eye (finalist)2017-10 - 3. International Contest for Experiment in Visual Arts Attempt (laureate) 2017-06 - 12. Inspirations Festival, TRAFO Centre for Contemporary Art (grand prix) 2017-06 - 16. Hestia Artistic Journey competition (laureate)2016-10 - scholarship from the Capital City of Warsaw

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RESIDENCIES2020-01 - AiR FUTURA, Prague2019-09 - Brno Artist in Residence, D m um n m sta Brna2018-12 - Colony of Artists, Gdańsk2017-07 - Bunker Residence, Center of Contemporary Art, Chernivtsi

OTHERS2019-09 - School of Expressions, PLATO, Ostrava2019-08 - Summer School as School, Stacion, Center for Contemporary Art, Prishtina 2017-09 - Paradox Fine Art European Forum, University of the Arts, London