We invite you to the meeting with Magda Hueckel at her exhibition Meanads
2 July 2020, 18.30–19.30
Exhibition: 20.06–4.07.2020
Place: Jednostka Gallery, Andersa 13, 00-159 Warsaw, Poland
Open Galleries Weekend 20–21.06.2020:
opening hours outside Open Galleries Weekend: Tuesday-Saturday 14.00-18.00
‘The face resists possession, resists my powers’
E. Levinas
Magda Hueckel sets a trap for the viewer. The face is sense. The face is where the language, the meaning, and the meeting begin. The face is a starting point for thinking, and it is the face of the Other where you experience closeness. The face is also an experience of mystery. I see a face. But Hueckel is playing a game with me. How many people are there in the picture? Two? Or three? Who is the third one? Is the left profile the left side of the face? Or the right one? Who owned the polo golf that now belongs to the ‘third woman’? The scarf? The string of beads? Who did they belong to? Whose was the black eye? And who closed the eyes? The hair? The lipstick? The droopy mouth corners? Which part of the face seems swollen and sick? Even though it is neither sick nor swollen. This is just a trap of hasty associations. And the names? The new name belongs to the person you see en face. Ata. Barfia. Boga. Data. Doka. Elra. Which profile do the names Irena, Wanda, Zofia belong to? Are the names alphabetised? Are there letters you cannot start any name with? You cover the left half of the face with your hand and you see a new face that you couldn’t see before, but it has always been there. You see a new, harmonious face, and a very beautiful one. You start guessing, making up a new face in year head. And the names. You try to sort out your experience. But it is the third face and the third name that keep intriguing you.
from Maja Kleczewska’s text Face to Face about the exhibition
The pictures have been made from portraits of real women gathered in a medical archive, to which the artist has added her own image. Maneads are an idea made up of dozens of individual stories and experiences. Maneads do not satisfy expectations. They are wild and peaceful at the same time. They don’t pretend to be anything. They look into the lens nonchalantly and boldly. They don’t pose. They are authentic, strong and incisive. They emanate intensity of existence. They are a symbol of the experience of femininity and feminine strength that have been repressed in culture for centuries. A woman’s primeval strength, bond, sense of dignity, but also stigmatisation, discrimination and trauma. The ‘Maenads’ have arisen from the artist’s desire to create a portrait capturing the experience of being a woman.
The photographs are presented with a sound installation, which is a record of a meeting between five women, moderated by Joanna Halszka Sokołowska.
Sound: Mateusz Adamczyk
Sound editing: Tomasz Śliwiński
Partners: University of Humanities and Economics in Lodz, Artesola Gallery, Holy-Art, Pracownia Oprawy, Powszechny Theatre
More on Meanads by Magda Hueckel
Attention!
Due the COVID-19 epidemic, guests are kindly requested to keep social distance and wear masks. Ten people can be present within the venue of Magda Hueckel’s exhibition at one time.