Saturday, January 1, 2011

Razing/Raising Walls, Warsaw
(Exhibition - ArtCloth: Engaging New Visions)

Norma Starszakowna (United Kingdom)

Preamble
This blogspot contains posts of artworks that have featured in my curated international exhibition - ArtCloth: Engaging New Visions. For your convenience I have listed these posts below.
ArtCloth: Engaging New Visions (Marie-Therese Wisniowski - Curator's Talk)
Sequestration of CO2 (Engaging New Visions) M-T. Wisniowski
Sacred Planet I (Engaging New Visions) J. Dunnewold
Under Pressure (Engaging New Visions) L.A. Beehler
lo Rising II & Giza (Engaging New Visions) R. Benson
Etruscan Relic (Engaging New Vision) J. Raffer Beck
Catch The Light 1 & 2 (Engaging New Visions) J. Schulze
Emerge (Engaging New Visions) J. Truckenbrod
Breathe Deeply (Engaging New Visions) C. Benn
Die Gedanken Sind Frei 3 & 4 (Engaging New Visions) C. Helmer
Black Birds I & II (Engaging New Visions) C. Holmes
Autumn Visions I & II (Engaging New Visions) J. Petruskeviciene
Quite Alone Oasis… (Engaging New Visions) J. Urbiene
Nothing Is The Same I & II (Engaging New Visions) E. van Baarle
Discharge Thundercloud (Engaging New Visions) K. Kagajo
Shroud Of Ancient Echoes I & II (Engaging New Visions) S. Fell-McLean
Cane Toad Narrative (Engaging New Visions) H. Lancaster
Visionary and Eclipse (Engaging New Vision) J. Ryder
Untitled ArtWorks (Engaging New Vision) Tjariya (Nungalka) Stanley and Tjunkaya Tapaya
Treescape (Engaging New Vision) A. Trevillian


Introduction
We shall return weekly to the European contribution to ArtCloth: Engaging New Visions.

The catalog of the exhibition is far more detailed in terms of opening addresses and artist’s biographies, curriculum vitae and statements etc. and moreover, is a holistic record of the exhibition itself.

Website displaying One of Norma's Artworks: Hanging-Diasporas


Synopsis of Artwork: Razing/Raising Walls, Warsaw
My work is generally based on a longstanding interest in walls within the urban landscape, both as a means of expression of the individual voice and of wider cultural identities and zeitgeist. This may focus on the markings and scraps of aged wallpaper in once-intimate interiors that form a domestic archaeology, or through graffiti and outmoded text on walls and billboards. An overarching interest however, is the use of the wall as a means of protection, or as separation and control of the ‘other’.

This particular piece emerged from the experience of tracing my father’s footsteps in Poland, when I visited the site of the Warsaw Ghetto where two of his cousins died. I was struck by the mind-set or zeitgeist that commissioned the raising of these walls, the segregation of the people within and their ultimate death, by starvation, deportation or during the final razing of the wall. There is little trace left today of the walls of that ghetto; other, more richly coloured walls stand in its place, but neither the wall nor the zeitgeist died; the wall lives again today in Gaza*.

*Note: An earlier piece, ‘Shadow of the Wall, Gaza’ (approx. 205 x 320 cms) was exhibited at ‘Collect’, Victoria & Albert Museum, 2008 and subject of the Art Fund Collect Purchase Award, for the collection of the Whitworth Gallery, Manchester.

‘Diasporas’ (approx. 35 x 320 cms), was exhibited at ‘Collect’ 2006 and purchased for the collection of the V&A.

‘Hinterland’, 2004 (18 sections, each 25-60 x 250 cm), which similarly focuses on identity was commissioned by Art in Partnership/Scottish Parliament for permanent installation in the new Scottish Parliament building.


Techniques
Screen printed pigments, embossed, heat-reactive, applied glaze and patinations on two sections of part digitally printed silk organza substrate.
Size: 120 cm (width) x 300 cm (length).

(a) Razing/Raising Walls, Warsaw, left artwork.
Fairfield City Museum and Gallery, NSW, Australia (right artwork by Joan Schulze - see earlier post).
Photograph courtesy Cedric Boudjema, Director, Fairfield City Museum and Gallery.

(b) Razing/Raising Walls, Warsaw (Norma Starszakowna), left artwork. Orange Regional Art Gallery, NSW, Australia (right artwork by Joan Schulze - see earlier post).
Photograph courtesy Marie-Therese Wisniowski.

(c) Razing/Raising Walls, Warsaw (Norma Starszakowna), left artwork. Redcliffe City Art Gallery, Queensland, Australia (see future and earlier posts for all other artworks).
Photograph courtesy Karen Tyler, Director, Redcliffe City Art Gallery. Photography by Al Sim.

(d) Razing/Raising Walls, Warsaw(Norma Starszakowna), centre artwork.
Wangaratta Art Gallery, Victoria, Australia (see earlier posts for other artworks).
Photograph courtesy Marie-Therese Wisniowski.

(e) Razing/Raising Walls, Warsaw (Norma Starszakowna) - full view.

(f) Razing/Raising Walls, Warsaw (Norma Starszakowna) - detailed view.

(g) Razing/Raising Walls, Warsaw (Norma Starszakowna) - detailed view.

2 comments:

Terry Jarrard-Dimond said...

Thanks for presenting this sophisticated elegant work.

Unknown said...

I am finding Norma Starszakowna's work hard to research - thank you!