This spring, Maks Cieślak was the first Polish winner of the Henkel Art.Award. to present his work to an international audience at the MUMOK Museum in Vienna. The time has come for him to take part in an individual exhibition in Poland. As in the Austrian capital, visitors will have the opportunity to see the artist’s cinematographic works, this time enriched by a new film entitled “Figiel” (The Frolic), which was completed in the second part of the year. Maks Cieślak will also display selected paintings. Dorota Monkiewicz, director of the Wrocław Contemporary Museum, is the exhibition’s curator.
The video works of 29-year-old Maks Cieślak, who lives in Tomaszów Mazowiecki, are characterized by a combination of the expressive techniques of silent films with the aesthetics of amateur YouTube videos and film collages. In this way, the artist approaches film in an entirely undogmatic way. For example, this is achieved by fusing the myths of media history, such as Yuri Gagarin’s journey into space or a concert by The Doors, into a humorous and unconventional whole. Some of his works can also be seen as a bitter satire on the world of art.

Maks Cieślak’s exhibition in the Wrocław museum consists of four films, nine pictures and installations:

In the film “Odrobina szczęścia w miłości” (Cloud Nine, 2007), Maks Cieślak himself plays the main protagonist – a young artist delivering a passionate, angry monologue full of accusations and vulgarisms against the art that springs from the avant-garde (critical and feminist art and body art), while also criticizing the domination of theoretic discourse, art’s loss of purpose, the growing confusion etc. It is all because at a critical moment with an art student whom he adored, the question: “Where are we going, your place or mine?” was answered with a leaflet for the 44th Art Biennale being waved in his face.

“Kryptonim Królestwo” (The Vision of Father Joseph, 2008) is a film made in the ‘found footage’ technique. It tells the story of a Catholic priest who flies into space instead of Yuri Gagarin. After discovering the fraud, the Soviet authorities decide to cut off the oxygen supply to the capsule. Just before his death, the priest experiences a vision that is an absurd combination of funny Internet films and progressive rock.

“Doktor Fauścik” (Faustus The Tiny, 2009), made according to the aesthetics of silent films from the second decade of 20th century, tells the story of a young man (also in this case played by the artist himself) who sells his soul to the devil in order to be able to play an intellectual and an artist according to the expectations of his lover, who is a fan of art. Paradoxically, however, exactly because of his admiration for art, the girl becomes more attracted to a vulgar motorcyclist than to the intellectual. The film poses questions about the sense of art in the face of the loss of the sacred. In the sequence entitled: “Art is a Forbidden Fruit Marmalade,” the artist also refers to unnecessary and unjustified taboo breaking, parodying performance as a form of art.

“Figiel” (The Frolic, 2011) is a short and bitter comedy about the life of a modern artist who, having already broken most taboos, begins to frivolously fantasize about a work of art that is, literally, a crime. All of this takes place against the backdrop of an extraordinary love triangle.

The “Humor i człowieczeństwo” (Humor and Humanity, 2009) installation shows Charlie Chaplin receiving an Academy Honorary Award and refers to the humanistic potential of art: “We think too much and we feel too little. We need humanity more than machines (…).”

The paintings of Maks Cieślak that will be displayed in Wrocław also critically refer to the dominant discourses of the Polish art scene, with a sense of humour and a pinch of poisonous beauty.
Maks Cieślak’s exhibition in Wrocław is accompanied by a catalogue in three languages. It is a joint catalogue for the exhibition in the Wrocław Contemporary Museum and the one that took place in the Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien.
Information about the Maks Cieślak exhibition:

Museum: Wrocław Contemporary Museum
Exhibition title: “Art is a Forbidden Fruit Marmalade”
Address: Plac Strzegomski 2a, Wrocław
Date: November 18, 2011 – January 16, 2012
Opening hours: Mon 10 AM–6 PM, Tue – closed, Wed–Sun 12 PM–8 PM