The Studio BWA Wrocław gallery opens its exhibition as part of the 21st New Horizons International Film Festival Art Scene. Traditionally, the exhibition is an extension of the festival's cinematographic research and this year's theme is teeth.
Teeth are an anatomical structure that create a kind of nodal point in human existence – in the sense that various planes of human experience intersect there.
As the only element of the skeleton not masked by any other tissue, they reveal the skull hidden under the face of a human being. They are on the border between the human being's interior and exterior; on the one hand, they provide intimate, sensual sensations, including suffering – on the other, they constitute one of the key elements of the facial façade that humans show to the world. Homely and, at the same time, foreign, in their own way. They are also an important front in the struggle that humans wage with the entropy of corporeality; because they age and wear out faster than the consciousness of their owners.
The appetite for the predatory biting of life last much longer than the teeth that allow you to bite and quench that desire. Hence the ambivalent status of teeth in the universe of human emotions and imagination; they are as much an emblem of youth and vitality as a figure of the loss of these qualities. They expose the animal and predatory aspect of humanity, but at the same time are entangled in various cultural narratives and social contexts.
Teeth are also a cinematographic fetish. In countless horror movies we see them in the form of fierce vampire fangs, representing the monstrosity of humanity. It is again in the form of the perfect teeth of movie stars, characters onto whom we project our collective imaginations. It is no coincidence that politicians take the example of actors and actresses, treating healthy, attractive teeth as an important component of a public image with which the community will be willing to identify. The counterpoint of the strong teeth of a leader who embodies collective aspirations are the teeth of the slave, the condition of which is used to judge the value of the "human chattel." It is significant that among all the fields of medicine, none have been so totally commercialized as aesthetic medicine and dentistry. In the most health care systems, the state's concern for the human body ends at the teeth, which are left to capitalism as pawns in its Darwinist game. The teeth, therefore, become the emblem of material success and a class label. And vice versa, you cannot be someone in society without being able to document your partisanship with well-groomed teeth. Only those who are "nobodies" can afford missing teeth, occupying places on the social ladder intended for "invisible" people.
Teeth are, finally, a transhumanistic training ground where dental technology is testing new ways to exceed the limits of the human body and its biological clock.
At the teeth, the social and cultural aspect of life intersects with the animal, corporeal, sensual, emotional and existential dimensions of human experience. We perceive teeth as too important to leave to dentists, the free market and our own fate, and together with the invited artists, we propose to reach for them with the tools of art and subject them to the work of the imagination.
Artists: Wojciech Bąkowski, Piotr Bosacki, Oskar Dawicki, Friedl Vom Gröller, Karolina Jabłońska, Tomasz Kręcicki, Norman Leto, Jacek Malinowski, Rebecca Moss, Cyryl Polaczek, Aleksandra Ska, Konrad Żukowski
With the special participation of: Uldus Bakhtiozina, Olaf Brzeski, Amélie Laurence Fortin
Curators: Ewa Szabłowska, Stach Szabłowski
Collaboration: Joanna Stembalska Exhibition
Space: Fabien Lédé
23.07-22.08.2021
Studio BWA, Wrocław,
ul. Ruska 46a / 3rd floor
Midisage: Friday, August 13, 2021,
6:00 PM | Galeria Dizajn (Świdnicka 2/4 Street) – unveiling of the restored sculpture Breath /Oddech by Olaf Brzeski
6:45 PM | walk to the Studio gallery
7:00 PM | Studio gallery - visiting the Z exhibition, refreshments, discussions
Curatorial tours: August 14 - 21 at 6 PM
