Opening: 12.04.2024 (Friday), 6PM
Exhibition: 14.04–19.05.2024
Place: BWA Olsztyn, aleja Marsz. Józefa Piłsudskiego 38, 10-450 Olsztyn, Poland
Curator: Monika Sadowska
Partner: Jednostka Gallery
Sponsor: MPEC Olsztyn
The A–Z (Educational Cabinets) project is entering its 18th year of a journey that Andrzej Tobis has consistently played out in terms of a strictly physical traversing of the map of Poland, and, as a result, the conceptual juxtaposition of a specific set of words, with the image of Polish reality. This journey is defined by a key: the illustrated Polish-German dictionary Bildwörterbuch Deutsch und Polnisch, published in 1954 in the German Democratic Republic, as well as specific rules according to which the author moves – he does not arrange the photographed situations, does not subject them to digital manipulation. Instead, he finds them in the chaotic landscape of contemporary Poland. A photograph created in this way is ultimately labeled with a entry in both Polish and German along with an index number from the original dictionary. In this way the word is brought out into the world and adhered to reality, and at the intersection of the linguistic and the visual, not only meaning, but also permanent tension is born.
For the entries found in the dictionary Tobis carefully selects subversive illustrations. He combines fragments of found reality with a specific set of words. This seemingly innocent activity based on a subjective selection process, an intuitive creation supported by few principles, is no longer focused only on an attempt to catalogue the world again, but first and foremost on discovering the meanings hidden in the anachronistic linguistic system. Each object, a given situation, the world stopped by the lens, is a living entity that reveals a multitude of meanings asking the question of what do words do with images and what is actually the basis of their mutual relationship? Therefore, the entries from the old dictionary, which the artist takes up anew, and which become a mental puzzle spiced with a fair amount of humor, position the viewer in a gap between experienced reality and reflection on its linguistic meaning – reflection on the word that defines us and our surroundings.
When we take a closer look at the cabinets in the title, we will notice that underneath this quasi-school and, for many, boring disguise of a teaching board inserted into the rigid framework of an archival structure, there is humor and a paradox. Each is an individual whole, in which Polish dialogues with German, and words repeatedly collide with images. At the junction of this triad, however, a gap is created, which the artist captures in an extraordinarily brisk manner, constantly questioning the criteria of dictionary objectivity. Tobis’ photographs expose the traps embedded in words and their meanings, images and the concepts attributed to them. The ambiguities that arise at the point of rupture, all shifts undeniably constitute the strength of the project, as well as its multi-layeredness.
The work as a whole is a collection of individual entities that together form infinite networks of meaning, creating a multidimensional organism that constantly multiplies content depending on their interrelationships, context or place of presentation. Thus, it is the matter of language that stands at the source, and at the same time provides a kind of tool for interpreting the A–Z cycle – an endless story of an ambiguous world, in which a game between words and images is constantly played out.
And as befits an almost of age work, within which democracy reigns: every element is equal to one another, and there is no question of hierarchy in the arrangement of the whole, it deserves a number of different and even divergent readings. Until now, the ways in which it has functioned have been based mainly on an alphabetical (dictionary) arrangement as in the index of a real dictionary, or annual reports summarizing a certain work cycle; there have also been attempts to subjectively categorize the cabinets, within which synthetic descriptions of the world have been created. As for the Olsztyn installment of the A-Z (Educational Cabinets) project, it is an attempt to create a new collection in which alphabetical order collides with the category of space, defined by the areas of 16 voivodeships. Each is a separate microstory, as well as a mini-dictionary that is just a snippet of a huge collection of entries. In the Sightseeing Loop [Pętla krajoznawcza], on one level there is a visual knowledge of Poland and a story of how the word is combined with the image, the image with reality and how this permeates the Polish landscape, while on the other level we observe a subjective picture of reality, in which each a trip is a ‘loop’ of time, places, meanings and personal experiences. We are constantly drifting between north and south, east and west. And we will leave this union with echoes of a bygone era, sometimes dissolving into contemporaneity, a sense of absurdity, discomfort or good humor, insightful sociological observation that the artist treats us to, and a journey into the depths of one’s own language within the framework of which accepted truths or standard meanings, are constantly deceived by the experience of the ‘country loop’.
*By the end of March 2024, more than 1,600 entries have been found. The A–Z (Educational Cabinets) project is of an utopian nature – it is not known how long it will continue, although it is certain that it will never be realized in its entirety.
Text: Monika Sadowska
Source: Andrzej Tobis: ‘Pętla krajoznawcza’ exhibition
Andrzej Tobis, Meta, from the ‘A–Z (Educational Cabinets) cycle, 2019