Untitled

2015 - Photography (Photography)

51 x 41 cm

Joanna Piotrowska


This selection of photographs taken between 2014 and 2019 focus on Piotrowska’s long-term preoccupation with issues of domesticity and containment. The images depict young isolated women in domestic environments, holding various unnatural postures: we see a hand raised to a face, as if in a trance; limbs precariously balanced or ambiguously entangled, contorted against an unseen adversary. It is unclear whether gestures are benign or threatening, whether these women are menacing or being menaced. These photographs are inspired by illustrated self-defense manuals and the work of feminist and psychologist Carol Gilligan. Piotrowska appropriates the formulaic step-by-step approach of the manuals but instead of showing two people in contact, she photographs the (re)actions of one woman in conflict with an unknown, absent subject. Gilligan’s research for its part revealed a tendency in adolescent girls to silence their inner voice to comply with the structures of patriarchal society, Piotrowska seeks to (re)present their agency in corporeal form, and depicts – through the invisible opponent – the underlying pressures they have to confront.


Photographer and filmmaker Joanna Piotrowska explores issues such as the female condition, family dynamics, and post-Soviet Poland, through black and white images that depict the quotidian. Her work investigates the symbolic and invisible power structures that constrain personal behaviors, singling out how culture, politics, and history impact each person’s intimate and emotional life. Documenting gestures of care, self protection, or control, Piotrowska’s images render these daily scenes uncanny through attentive composition. Piotrowska does not consider her photographs to be documentary but rather sees them as performances, where the characters’ poses, facial expressions and movements are carefully directed.


Colors:



Related works sharing similar palette

Artists' Postcards: A Compendium, By Jeremy Cooper
© » THE INDEPENDENT

Artists' Postcards: A Compendium, By Jeremy Cooper | The Independent | The Independent Of interest to students of art and deltiologists (collectors of postcards) alike, Jeremy Cooper's extensively illustrated book provides the first critical study of the place of the humble postcard in the history of art...

Weekly Southeast Asia Radar: Vietnam’s post-war writers; Burmese voices in book
© » ARTS EQUATOR

Weekly Southeast Asia Radar: Vietnam's post-war writers; Burmese voices in book | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia ArtsEquator Radar BACC October 8, 2020 ArtsEquator’s Southeast Asia Radar features articles and posts about arts and culture in Southeast Asia, drawn from local and regional websites and publications – aggregated content from outside sources, so we are exposed to a multitude of voices in the region...

Escaped Lunatic
© » KADIST

Steffani Jemison

In Escaped Lunatic , a steady stream of figures run across the screen, sprinting, jumping, and rolling through the streets of Houston...

3-Legged
© » KADIST

John Wood and Paul Harrison

1997

3-Legged is an early video work by John Wood and Paul Harrison in which they appear with their legs tied together (as one would do in a three-legged race)...

Baobab
© » KADIST

Tacita Dean

2001

The photographic quality of the film Baobab is not only the result of a highly sophisticated use of black and white and light, but also of the way in which each tree is characterized as an individual, creating in the end a series of portraits...

24624759624891410 2516…And then there were none
© » KADIST

Arin Rungjang

2017

246247596248914102516… And then there were none narrates a semi fictional account centered around the ambiguous history of the Democracy Monument in Bangkok, and on the aftermath of the 1973 demonstration of 400,000 people who marched against the military junta from Thammasat University to the monument...

Otobong Nkanga: Comot Your Eyes Make I Borrow You Mine
© » KADIST

Otobong Nkanga’s Comot Your Eyes Make I Borrow You Mine explores what it means when material abundance is replaced by absence, and when desire is superseded by cool disinterest...

A Long-Lost Pompeii Treasure Was Found in the Basement of a Family Home in Belgium
© » ARTNET

The precious marble was brought home 50 years ago as a souvenir after a family vacation in Italy...

BSA Images Of The Week: 12.10.23
© » BROOKLYN STREET ART

BSA Images Of The Week: 12.10.23 | Brooklyn Street Art BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! Great to see everyone last night at the Museum of Graffiti for the book launch of Mana Public Arts ...

Kitt Bennett Crafts Record-Breaking ‘Gif-iti’
© » HIGH FRUCTOSE

Kitt Bennett's "aerial mural work" was recently combined with satellite technology to craft the world's most massive independently created piece of "gif-iti" (or GIF-style graffiti) on 96,875-square-feet of waterfront space in Australia...

Untitled (Stanley Kubrick, 1945)
© » KADIST

Tim Lee

2010

Part of Tim Lee’s practice involves envisioning himself reenacting key moments from iconic peoples’ lives...

Untitled
© » KADIST

Kitty Kraus

Composed of two rectilinear pieces of glass, this work is part of a series of sculptures started in 2006...

Le Droit à l’oubli — Musée Transitoire #3
© » SLASH PARIS

Le Droit à l’oubli — Musée Transitoire #3 — Musée Transitoire — Exhibition — Slash Paris Login Newsletter Twitter Facebook Le Droit à l’oubli — Musée Transitoire #3 — Musée Transitoire — Exhibition — Slash Paris English Français Home Events Artists Venues Magazine Videos Back Previous Next Le Droit à l’oubli — Musée Transitoire #3 Exhibition Mixed media Jean-Charles de Quillacq, vue de l’exposition Le Droit à l’oubli, Musée Transitoire #3 © Musée Transitoire Le Droit à l’oubli Musée Transitoire #3 Ends in about 2 months: January 26 → March 30, 2024 Date de clôture provisoire Artistes : Bas Jan Ader, Mégane Brauer, Sarah Bucher, A...

Portcullis House needs overhaul to ‘prevent glass falling on to people’
© » THE GUARDIAN

Portcullis House needs overhaul to ‘prevent glass falling on to people’ | Politics | The Guardian Skip to main content Skip to navigation Skip to navigation Portcullis House requires work likely to cost tens of millions of pounds, according to a parliamentary report obtained by the Observer...

Decomposing Eternally
© » KADIST

George Pfau

2010

This work exemplifies George Pfau’s interest in zombies and liminal embodiment...

Things Entangling
© » KADIST

Things Entangling Edited by Che Kyongfa and Elodie Royer Designed by Toshimasa Kimura Published by Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT) and KADIST The publication is available in pdf — see links on the right side of this page Things Entangling was published on the occasion of the eponymous collective exhibition presented at MOT, Tokyo from June 9 to September 27, 2020, the culmination of a long-term curatorial collaboration between MOT and KADIST...

Sales Report: Frieze New York May 2021
© » ARTMARKETMONITOR

Sales Report: Frieze New York May 2021 Casey Kelbaugh The report is available to AMMpro subscribers ...

Kimbell Art Museum acquires important cultural touchstone of Olmec art
© » THEARTNEWSPER

Kimbell Art Museum acquires important cultural touchstone of Olmec art Art market Museums & heritage Exhibitions Books Podcasts Columns Technology Adventures with Van Gogh Search Search Museums & Heritage news Kimbell Art Museum acquires important cultural touchstone of Olmec art The jade statuette of an Olmec ruler holding a baby were-jaguar will be exhibited as the centrepiece of the Texas museum's ancient American collection Theo Belci 14 December 2023 Share Standing Figure Holding a Were-Jaguar Baby (around 900BC-300BC) Photo: Justin Kerr., courtesy of the Justin Kerr Maya archive, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, DC The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, has acquired Standing Figure Holding a Were-Jaguar Baby (around 900BC-300BC), a jade statuette at the centre of Olmec civilisation studies since the mid-20th century...

How shoddy building construction prompted Hong Kong’s love of glazed ceramic tiles
© » SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST

Opinion | How shoddy building construction prompted Hong Kong’s love of glazed ceramic tiles | South China Morning Post Advertisement Advertisement A worker cleans the dust-pink glazed ceramic tiles on the Hong Kong Cultural Centre in Tsim Sha Tsui...

Dutch Emerging: Ruben Janssen X GRA Fashion Bachelor 2023
© » DIANE PERNET

Dutch Emerging: Ruben Janssen X GRA Fashion Bachelor 2023 – A Shaded View on Fashion From the back to the middle and around again — Ria’s wedding dress, Alan’s patterns and John’s model: ‘My project is an investigation into evolution, explored through prisms of biology, computation and a poetic personal narrative, shifting between timescales on an evolutionary timeline...