“Pizza Soldiers” is a presentation of a wide choice of works by Ryszard Górecki. The artist, born in 1956 in Słubice, debuted in the early 1980s, at the beginning of the last phase of the communism.
During the turbulent decade of the 1990s, Górecki managed to combine his individual artistic activity with running his gallery – Galeria Prowincjonalna in Słubice, experiencing ups and downs of the transformation of the political system in Poland. In 2002, when neoliberalism was solidifying in this country, Górecki emigrated to Berlin.
In this case, the artist’s biographical scenario has been crucial for his art. Górecki was born at the height of the Cold War and grew up at the border of cultures and languages, in the shadow of great and dramatic history, in Słubice – a town, militarised at that time, in the Polish-German borderland, in the context of two antagonistic political and economical systems. The dynamics of history caused the realia in which the artist functioned to change at a great pace. Their critical observation and reflection over them were the basic area of his artistic activity.
Górecki’s analytic sense, distance and subtle irony let him develop a unique visual language for all of those experiences. In explicit or allusive ways, it revealed violent structures in social organisation of the Polish People’s Republic, as well as in mechanisms of early Polish turbocapitalism and in full-grown structures of the consumer society. Regardless of the kind of economical and ideological models observed by the artist in his particular realisations, his attention is invariably focused on mechanisms of social engineering, system methods of government and persuasive spreading of models of life. Typically for contemporary art, Górecki’s formal language combines various inspirations – simplified, geometricising and rhythmicised compositions and the artist’s favoured technique of using heterogeneous elements to assemble collages, objects and even paintings are of Modernist origin. Górecki willingly reaches for the language of electronic media, of contemporary advertising, of the culture of a logo and for such methods of visualising the knowledge as diagrams, charts and models. He is keen on employing the method of artistic recycling: he brings already existing images and signs out of their original contexts, processes them and presents them in new configurations. Górecki’s latest paintings, in which he uses strongly emotional elements belonging to non-artistic reality, are complex meaning constructions, the points of which emerge gradually with discovering their particular layers.
The paintings, collages, photo montages and objects presented at the exhibition in The National Museum in Szczecin were created within the last twenty-five years. The leitmotif of the exposition is one of the artist’s most expanded series. “Pizza Soldiers” is a paper army of 220 soldiers cut out of pizza boxes and located in surprising scenes as collages. The pacifist and antimilitaristic resonance of this bitterly ironic set of works points out the cynicism of the ideology of neoliberalism and free market, which do not abstain from using or even stimulating conflicts and wars for the sake of profit.
Ryszard Górecki (born in 1956 in Słubice) – interdisciplinary artist, moving around painting, object art and installation. Exhibition curator and educator. Graduate of Zielona Góra Pedagogical University (present University of Zielona Góra). Between 1980 and 2002 he run his gallery – Galeria Prowincjonalna in Słubice and Art in CP gallery at Collegium Polonicum of The Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. In years 1998–2005 he was the curator of a Polish contemporary art programme in Brandenburg Museum of Contmeporary Art in Cottbus and in Frankfurt (Oder). Awarded "Paszport Polityki" prize and, for several times, a scholarship by the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage by Cultural Foundation in Berlin. Interested in deformation of science and merging popular culture with social sciences, history and art metalanguage. He experiments with random objects found and consumer goods. He lives in Berlin.
The “Pizza Soldiers” exhibition is accompanied by workshops for children aged 6-10, carried out (in Polish exclusively) within a new education cycle entitled “Muzeum Sztuki – kurs plastyczny dla dzieci (The Museum of Art – an Artistic Course for Children)”.
Photo-Montages and Collages
October 24th, 2021 at noon
The National Museum in Szczecin ‒ The Museum of Contemporary Art
ul. Staromłyńska 1
“The Museum of Art” is a new formula of artistic course for children, carried out at chosen permanent and temporary exhibitions. The series is held in four fields: drawing, photo montages and collages, painting and sculpture. The aim of the classes entitled Photo Montages and Collages is to play with contemporary art, which brings the opportunities of the real freedom of creation. During the “Pizza Soldiers” classes, inspired by the output by Ryszard Górecki, who frequently uses both these techniques, children familiarise with various collage works created with the use of materials that are found or recycled. Various motifs taken from fragments of old brochures, boxes, catalogue pages, short texts, letters and slogans are used for creating unique works of art. The classes are held in Polish only.
Conducted by: Agata Kamińska
Registration: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Due to the limited access, in-advance registration is necessary.
Sanitary restrictions apply. Protective masks must be provided
Admission: PLN 10 pp.
Ryszard Górecki "Pizza Soldiers”
Curator: Magdalena Lewoc
Organizer: The National Museum in Szczecin
The National Museum in Szczecin – The Museum of Contemporary Art
ul. Staromłyńska 1
exhibition available from September 11th to October 31st, 2021
vernissage: September 10th, 2021 (Friday), 6:00 P.M.
- Pizza Soldiers (for. Michał Wojtarowicz)
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- Pizza Soldiers (for. Michał Wojtarowicz)
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- Pizza Soldiers (for. Michał Wojtarowicz)
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- Pizza Soldiers (for. Michał Wojtarowicz)
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- Pizza Soldiers (for. Michał Wojtarowicz)
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- Pizza Soldiers (for. Michał Wojtarowicz)
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- Pizza Soldiers (for. Michał Wojtarowicz)
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- Pizza Soldiers (for. Michał Wojtarowicz)
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- Pizza Soldiers (for. Michał Wojtarowicz)
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- Pizza Soldiers (for. Michał Wojtarowicz)
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- Pizza Soldiers (for. Michał Wojtarowicz)
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- Pizza Soldiers (for. Michał Wojtarowicz)
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- Pizza Soldiers (for. Michał Wojtarowicz)
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- Pizza Soldiers (for. Michał Wojtarowicz)
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