Kornel Janczy
World
Kornel Janczy’s best known work thus far is Sun in the Mountains. This reconstruction of a three-dimensional model for Japanese woodcuts, depicting a sunset or romantic European photographs from trips to the Alps, was wonderfully simple: a red sphere immersed in a mound of flour. In it, the sun resembled a big bloody yolk prepared for kneading a cake. In this one implementation, the artist’s tendency to concise and often witty recognition of patterns of perception, categorization and the organization of space, the macro and micro level, are clearly evident. As the artist wrote himself: “My works resemble parascientific models. I combine an objective calculation, simple, restrained forms often limiting themselves to basic geometric shapes with naivety, sentimentality and romanticism.”
The show at the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art will consist of a collection of small objects, ranging from Giewont figurines, a conveyance of the popular imagination about the most famous mountain in Poland into physical reality through an acrylic painting of a hole (!) and polystyrene planet, and ending on a map divided discordantly with fixed expectations in the mass collective imagination in the sphere of affluence, wealth and prosperity. All the works derive from cycles created independently from of one another and at different times.
Janczy declares that he is interested in the issue of the scale and its surpassing. “The design of the installation has been conceived on the basis of a landscape or route going through a mountainous, rugged terrain. The best example could be the route which I take daily from my studio to the house and back. Leaving the studio, I'm almost in the centre of town; the buildings and trees are on a scale of one to one. I head for the Belgian block pavement (model: double t or a wave), which winds all the way to my house. I live upstairs, so I begin the ascend. Houses stand to the right and left; densely planted trees obstruct my view of the sky. Tufts of grass protrude from between the pavement here and there. The asphalt next to the pavement has lots of holes in it, not to mention some trash as well. I come to an intersection where the building developments and trees end. Before me, meadows and fields; above me, stars in the sky; behind me, the city. Now I see everything from above, like on a map. The higher I go, the more extensive the view, until I am near my home and three-quarters of my panorama is a view of the mountain range and valley, where I can see the entire city. From the position of a participant, I pass into the position of an observer.” – explains the artist.
