‘POINTS OF CONTENTION’ |MAREK ELSNER

‘POINTS OF CONTENTION’  | MAREK ELSNER

Venue: Duża Scena UAP Gallery, 24 Wodna Street, Poznań

Opening exhibition: 7 February 2023 at 18:00

Duration of the exhibition: 7 February  – 26 February 2023

Curator: Dawid Szafrański

The Municipal Galleries of the Magdalena Abakanowicz University of the Arts in Poznań (UAP) cordially invite you to Marek Elsner’s exhibition entitled ‘Points of Contention’. The opening exhibition will take place on 7 February 2023 at 18:00 in the Scena Duża UAP Gallery in Poznań.

The current political situation increasingly resonates in the behaviour of society. I notice a huge polarisation of not necessarily positive behaviours. What is alarming is the evidently growing division of Poles over the last few years. The exhibition entitled ‘Points of Contention’ comments on the current state of social mindset and is intended to show the evident radicalism that enters every aspect of our lives. The exhibition is supposed to be a kind of warning, introducing the viewer’s conscience into a discourse on the differences between healthy patriotism and exaggeration, which is nationalism. The exhibition features several objects created in the spirit of ready-made, assemblage, metal castings and clay modelling.

MAREK ELSNER was born in Gorzów Wielkopolski in 1982. He graduated from the State Secondary School of Fine Arts in Gorzów Wielkopolski and the Faculty of Sculpture (now the Faculty of Sculpture and Intermedia) at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk. He made a diploma in the studio of Professor Sławoj Ostrowski in 2008 and an annex in the Studio of Artistic Ceramics. He is professionally associated with the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk. He works as an assistant at the Medallion and Small Sculptural Forms Studio at the Faculty of Sculpture and Intermedia of the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk. He collaborated many times with the Faculty of Sculpture of the UAP in organising post-competition exhibitions as part of the Professor Józef Kopczyński Student Biennial of Small Sculptural Forms. He participated in many open-air workshops, individual and collective exhibitions and art projects in Poland and abroad (including in Japan, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Russia, Turkey and Lithuania).

He won the Artistic Scholarship of the City of Sopot in 2022 and was the finalist of the 3^rd Pomeranian Art Triennial at the State Art Gallery in Sopot in 2019. Elsner won the Creative Scholarship of the Marshal of the Pomeranian Voivodeship in 2011 and 2016. He also won the Artistic and Creative Scholarship of the Mayor of Gorzów City in 2006 and 2008.

I work primarily in the fields of sculpture and artistic ceramics. I create organic forms and those strongly related to human activity. I am inspired by the observation of how people behave towards others. I deal with figuration, abstraction and the creation of critical objects. I am interested in assemblage and drawing. My considerations in the field of art are based on three axes: man – nature – object. I work with a variety of materials and scales. Both technique and the message of works are important to me…

Marek Elsner

Organisers:

Magdalena Abakanowicz University of the Arts in Poznań Wydział Rzeźby UAP

Faculty of Sculpture and Intermedia of the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk

Duża Scena UAP

NOWA UAP Foundation

Co-financed from the budget of the City of Poznań  # poznanwspiera