Friday,
03 May
“Character Study”
The work “Character Study” is a film collage consisting of found footage and the artist’s original recordings. The starting point were archival materials and training films commissioned by the US government during the Cold War, used in the video installation. In his work, Dominik Ritszel manipulates the content of the films used by comparing them with his own productions, focusing on individual elements of the narrative and formal means. The issues related to safety, body hygiene and a healthy lifestyle discussed in the work define the political meanings assigned to the body, especially the male body. Figurative representations of the uniformed military force and society as a mass are intended to reveal hidden content contained in archival recordings and to outline a vision of a patriarchal society.
Dominik Ritszel
He was born in 1988. A visual artist who creates films, objects and video installations. In 2013, he graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice at the Faculty of Workshop Graphics.
In his works, he refers to phantasms and images of masculinity set in historical, cultural, and political contexts. His creations constitute a critical reflection on issues related to power, institutions and mechanisms of exclusion.
The artist‘s works have been shown, among others as part of international video review festivals such as Les Rencontres Internationales (Gaîté Lyrique, Palais de Tokyo, Paris), Proyector, International Video Art Festival, FIPA 29 ‘(Barritz). He took part in many group exhibitions, including Someone I have been observing for some time at Pastificio Cerere, Metronomics at Another Vacant Space, Przechwałki i pogróżki [Boasts and threats] at TRAFO Center for Contemporary Art, Waiting for better times [Czekając na lepsze czasy] at Zachęta Project Room. Individually, he exhibited at the CSW Kronika Gallery in Bytom, The Witches’ Tower Gallery in Słupsk, Bank Pekao Project Room and Studio Tommaseo in Trieste. He represented Poland at the Biennale Balticum in 2016 (Rauma, Finland).
Holder of Young Poland scholarship in 2014 and the Minister of Culture and National Heritage scholarship in 2017. Winner of the Trieste Contemporanea Award in 2015. Distinguished by the Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe magazine in the ARTS category (2016). He lives and works in Katowice. He collaborates with the Szara Gallery in Katowice. His works are in the collection of the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art and in private collections.
Dominik Ritszel is the laureate of the award of the Jan Tarasin City Gallery in Kalisz and the BWA Gallery Award in Tarnów for the project “Character Study,” which was entered in the International Contest for Experiment in Visual Arts ATTEMPT 4.