exhibition: Identity Proofs - scene 2

Anyone who comes across Gliwice in April, please be welcome to visit the exhibition I'm opening tomorrow.

Identity Proofs – scene 2

Aneta Grzeszykowska / Joachim Schmid

Identity Proofs is a photographic exposition presenting works of artists dealing with the issue of identity. Four artists were invited to present individual projects at the Art ReadingRoom – new space created next to the Museum in Gliwice. In the first edition, which took place in March, we had a chance to see the works of Dita Pepe and Jerzy Lewczyński.

For the second edition, which will start on April 8^th, we invited a young Polish photographer, Aneta Grzeszykowska, and German artist-sociologist, Joachim Schmid.

The April exposition is supposed to focus the visitors’ attention on the problem of identity perceived through our ‘visual quality’, our personal appearance. Presented will be a series of illusional portraits of non-existent people by Aneta Grzeszykowska. Through digital manipulation of the image, the artist creates fake persons who are very convincing in their detailed appearance. This cycle will be juxtaposed with the work of Joachim Schmid’s, in which, as in most of his creation, he uses found photographs. Old, torn apart studio portraits – probably made for IDs’ – are organized in the way that produces new, double portraits. Combined features of two different people create a disturbing image of some new, unknown identity. Confronting the works of Schmid and Grzeszykowska should arise doubts and destroy our confidence in what and whom we actually see.

letf: Aneta Grzeszykowska, from the series "Untitled People",
rigth: Joachim Schmid, from the series "Photogenetic Drafts"