Saturday,
20 April
Anna Grzelewska and Zuza Krajewska take portraits. Sometimes these are figures appearing in the title pages of newspapers, other times – anonymous people – the members of their own families or accidentally met strangers who look intriguing. They often work with commercial photography and create portraits that express the social standing, the job and character of the person. Janusz Palikot, Anja Rubik and Beata Tyszkiewicz through the lens of Grzelewska or Krajewska become defined figures, armoured by the attributes of their social position and performed profession. The famous portrait of Jolanta Kwaśniewska eating meringue with her hands in black gloves taken by Zuza Krajewska or the iconic photo of Zbigniew Libera from the project Freelancer are photos which say more about the people than an interview or a paragraph in the encyclopaedia. The photos shown at the City Art Gallery of Kalisz are different. Here we won’t find the faces of celebrities but the anonymous figures of teenagers. The heroine of the series Julia Wannabe by Grzelewska and the boys in the photos by Zuza Krajewska hang between childhood and adulthood.
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Imago is an entomological term. As the definition says: “imago (Lat.) is an adult insect, perfect, the final stage of the development of the species.”
Insects in the imago stage, grasshoppers, beetles, flies, look adult but are smaller. All of their organs, including the sex organs are fully shaped but the young insects don’t use all of the functions of their bodies. The chitin cuirasses that cover their bodies are still soft and elastic, becoming harder with time. Crumpled wings adopt a shape and they start to be fully apt. Imago are therefore not larvae or chrysalis and they go through no further changes. At the same time they are not fully adult. This zoological metaphor is especially striking in the case of the series Julia Wannabe. The title heroine is Anna Grzelewska’s daughter. The girl photographed throughout the years goes through a metamorphosis on our eyes. From a golden haired angel falling asleep in her parents’ bed, she changes into a beautiful teenager, conscious of her womanhood. In the meantime there are episodes of crying, being ashamed by the gaze of other people, resignation, experiments with one’s image, dreams. The heroine evolves from a dependent, lost little creature and pupates into an independent person who knows her value, will leave her parents’ house soon and will start to live on her own. For the moment she is a rebellious girl, strikingly alike her father and through her unsure movements, she researches the ground around her, more and more courageously adventuring into the world. Just like Alice Munro in the novel Lives of Girls and Women, Anna Grzelewska focuses on the moments of transition in everybody’s life, rich in experiments, mistakes and hesitation.
Portrayed by Zuza Krajewska, the boys in her portraits are more or less of equal age to Julia. However they don’t live as she does – at their own homes with parents and siblings, but in a youth custody centre. How did they get there? Due to their experiments with adulthood and by not observing societies’ rules of conduct. One beat up someone, another has been stealing since he was a child, another is a rapist. If he had been an adult, he would have been sent to jail. The custody centre is supposed to reintroduce them back into society and teach them how to function among people. When they leave the centre as 18-year olds, they will have to deal with the world without the help of their teachers, their therapy and without the limitations previously imposed on them. How will they use the freedom that they will regain?
The portraits taken by Zuza Krajewska are full of dualities. The figures who look at us from the photos seem to be on one hand – childish, clumsy and innocent, on the other strikingly adult, as if they had experienced life. Their bodies still belong to those of kids; skinny necks, smooth torsos dressed in clothes that are a bit too large. The smooth faces without hair sometime show the waggish smile of the class brawler, another time a grin of pursed lips revealing a ruthless obstinacy. The eyes of a boy in one photo sparkle with enthusiasm and lively optimism, from another image a teenager looks at us, his eyes telling us that “he has already seen everything”. Additionally – there is a factor of unification. Each of them has short hair, wears similar clothes; somehow they rid themselves of individual attributes, trying to become part of a group. A pack of young wolves.
In these photos there is also something else; some unexpressed solidarity with their heroes. Krajewska, one of the best Polish photographers, professionally fulfilled, a mother of a 1-year old daughter, does not look down on her models, she does not judge them. Rather she sees her own mistakes, hesitations and fears in them. Because maybe we stay teenagers who only pretend to be adults forever?
Anna Grzelewska (1976) – photographer and documentary film director. She studied cultural studies at the University of Warsaw, she also graduated from the Wajda School in Warsaw and she studied at the ITF Opava. Her photos have been published in magazines such as: The Guardian, Gup Magazine, Magenta Mag, Polityka, Elle, Exklusiv, Kikimora. She was awarded with the Lensculture Emerging Talent Award (San Francisco, 2015), second Grand Prix of the Fotofestiwal (Łódz 2015) and she was a finalist of the 29th Festival International De Mode & De Photographie (Hyères 2014). She was born and lives in Warsaw. Zuza Krajewska (1975) – photographer, graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk. Her images have been published in Elle, Szum and KMag among others. Her works have been presented during many individual and group shows – including CCA Ujazdowski Castle, (“Red eye effect”, 2008), National Museum of Warsaw (“Arts Homo Erotica”, 2010; “Raised. From the Pharaoh to Lady Gaga”, 2012), PGS in Sopot (“Self-love. Artists love themselves”, 2014) or BWA Warszawa (“Solstice”, 2013). She lives and works in Warsaw.