ALDEA GALLERY

VORACITY LOOP: MUTATING FORM, CONSCIOUSNESS, AND SENSITIVITY

Inside Job (Ula Lucińska, Michał Knychaus) and Botond Keresztesi met in 2021, during their participation in the 34th Ljubljana Biennale. The three bonded over their interest in creating multi-layered environments as simulations of algorithmic and speculative thinking. Their similar aesthetic sensibility references a contemporary visual language that merges the digital and the analogue and plays with concepts of flatness and assemblage to combine organic and inorganic matter in representations of posthumanist philosophies. The exhibition at ALDEA is the resulting exploration of all these intersecting interests that have been developed by the three artists, during the month they spent living and working side by side in Bergen.  

Inside Job uses industrial and recycled materials to create installations and sculptural objects. For the work on view, they found mahogany from old cargo ships in Bergen, in which they milled and carved fossilised shapes of extinct species. Trilobites and ammonites emerge from the wood or the metal used by the artists and are further combined with laser-cut brass and stainless steel elements. These fractal-like metal shapes have a post-industrial technological coldness to them, whilst simultaneously evoking nature-in spired pagan elements. The assemblages, through their oscillation between temporal representations,  and fusion of organic and inorganic materials, suspend the sense of temporality in the space.  

In a similar fashion, Botond Keresztesi’s paintings depict self-standing techno-organic forms, transposed on canvas in oil and acrylic. These ouroboros-like creatures, seem to be captured in movement, as they are morphing and incorporating pieces of machinery, robotics, animals, bones, as well as decorative Art-Nou veau shapes and root-like ornaments. These self-standing compositions are floating on airbrushed backgrounds of landscapes or colourful abstraction, and they appear as flashbacks of dream-like scenarios of retro-futuristic predictions.  

The two practices have nourished a dialogue that is palpable throughout the exhibition and that highlights the artists’ interest in exploring new ontological classifications. These new classifications carry the hope of potential reconciliation between two concurring forces that are currently unfolding at a scorching pace: technological development and climate destruction. The techno-organic creatures not only capture but also amplify the speed of this speculative merger, as they are themselves transformed into what the artists call “technofossils”.  

The exhibition captures the unmetabolized anxieties of our collective unconscious and it depicts the murk iness of the epistemological crisis that we—as humanity—are currently experiencing. Uneasy as it seems,  within this ungraspable scale of deep time and moving matter—set at work by both our species and by  powers that are now far beyond it—the exhibition finds a comforting pattern in accepting the continuous  mutation of form, consciousness, and sensitivity. Moreover, working through the anxieties of envisioning  futures that are decentering the human, the artworks make use of the limitless reconfigurations of both  consciousness and technology, to help us mold viable posthuman co-adaptations with and within nature. 

Exhibition Title: Voracity Loop
Participating artists: Inside Job (Ula Lucińska and Michał Knychaus) and Botond Keresztesi
Venue: Aldea Gallery C. Sundsgate 55, Bergen, Norway
Date Open: April 13th – May 11th, 2022 Thursday - Sunday 1 - 4
Text: Adriana Blidaru
Photography: Thor Brødreskift, all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Aldea Gallery, Bergen

Inside Job: Ula Lucińska (b. 1992, PL) and Michał Knychaus (b. 1987, PL) work together as the Inside Job  duo. Both graduated from the University of Arts in Poznań, Poland. Their practice is based on the use of different mediums and materials, which often leads to the creation of multi-layered, object-based environments. They focus on the processes of how identities are constructed, including the identities of places, within the context of dynamic changes such as: the climate crisis, technological acceleration, political shifts and growing anxiety about the unknown future. Many of their projects refer to futuristic and post-catastrophic scenarios. 

They are the finalists of the international Artagon IV competition in Paris (2018); shortlisted for the International Allegro Prize (2020); merited with: the Poznań City Award for Emerging Artists (2020,2021), Art  Scholarship of the Marshal of the Greater Poland Voivodeship (2021), Prize of the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage (2018) and Santander Universidades Prize (2016). They have presented works during art residencies (RUPERT Residency, Vilnius, LT; A-I-R FUTURA, Prague, CZ; Residency Gurzelen,  Biel/Bienne, CH; TestDrive, Nicosia, CY; Kulturfabrik, Burgdorf, CH), at individual exhibitions (e.g. Lily Robert, Paris, FR; Cantina, Aarhus, DK; eastcontemporary, Milan, IT; FUTURA, Prague, CZ; Hot Wheels  Projects, Athens, GR; Pawilon, Poznań, PL; :SKALA, Poznań, PL; 9/10 Gallery, PL) and collective ones (the  34th Biennale of Graphic Arts in Ljubljana, SLO; Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, DE; BWA Wrocław, PL; TRAFO -  Trafostacja Sztuki, Szczecin, PL; The Death of Man, Warsaw Gallery Weekend, PL; WallRiss, Fribourg, CH;  Sattlekammer, Bern, CH; the Athens Digital Arts Festival 2018, Athens, GR; DuflonRacz, Bern, CH). 

Botond Keresztesi (1987* Marosvásárhely, RO) is a Romanian/Hungarian artist working in painting, drawing, and site-specific painting installations. Remixing references from Art History, popular culture, virtual space, and everyday life, his paintings crystalise into the fragmented realities of dream-like landscapes.  Keresztesi’s paintings create enchanting alternative realities by drawing the viewer into unknown, yet strangely familiar, microcosms. The works collide 2D and 3D as a reflection of visuals absorbed in everyday life and brought together in a surreal landscape. Dreamlike and sometimes eerie, they connect digital images, Internet surfaces, cybernated realities, infomercials, pop and avant-garde culture in a stream of consciousness floating across the canvas. 

The subjects can be traced back to European Avant-Garde movements such as Cubism, Futurism and Surrealism. Keresztesi is combining these different artistic approaches with topics such as dreams, ecstasy,  sin, death, passion or hallucinations. These surreal compositions are created by combining different techniques such as airbrush and masking in combination with traditional brushwork. Although the paintings have a strong emphasis on the figurative, they cannot be categorized as photo-realistic. 

Recent solo and group exhibitions have taken place at: Galerie Deroullion, Paris; Storage Capacité, Berlin; Damien & The Love Guru, Brussels; Kunstfort, Vijhuizen, NL; Future Gallery, Berlin; Artkartell Project  Space, Budapest; Labor Gallery, Budapest; Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest; and Schloss, Oslo.