16.07.–13.09.2009
Exhibition in the Great Hall

Paweł Książek

Opening: July 15, 2009, 8 p.m.

The young Polish painter, Paweł Książek, presented in his first solo exhibition in an Austrian art institution his series “N.N. vs. Artists.”

The artist collected images of anonymous people on the Internet for the series “N.N. vs. Artists,” which comprises over 40 images and was showed at the Salzburger Kunstverein. These unsettling images show young people in “consciousness expanding” activities, usually involving alcohol and sex. The subjects walk a fine line between pranks, sadism, or abuse. This impression is reinforced in these artistically transposed images through references to art history, such as Caravaggio or Vienna Actionism. The references to actionist and performative practices from the 1960s and 70s were shown in the exhibition as a picture dictionary.

Paweł Książek‘s art projects stand out through the intense research and the interest in visual issues. His series, Africanized Honey Bees, Sylvia Plath, or Silent Utopia, deal with subjects like racism, depression, or the utopian potential of modernist architecture in Poland in the 1920s.

In cooperation with the Vienna Polish Institute.

Paweł Książek, born 1973 in Andrychów, lives and works in Cracow.