Still from Pixelated Venus

This work is part of the Josephine work cycle.

“What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable,
in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals”
Shakespeare

“As if Dadaism had gained wings and
sailed across the rift of nihilism...“

“This text accompanies the exhibition Josephine, entering the maze. This show is the twin of Nachricht vom letzten Menschen [Message from the Last man], the previous installation of Michal Martychowiec. It is the fourth in the current exhibition cycle Mythopoesis.

It is not easy for me to write about Josephine because language binds and Josephine is something living. In her, we experience the eternally recurring transport of the sphinx. A sphinx in this case is understood as a question that can neither be obtained nor fathomed.

[….]

If we turn on our own axis, we notice that we are standing between two portraits of the same animal. In the above-mentioned video and in a large, bluish photograph, the creature looks at us and yet looks right through us at itself. Not without melancholy, the artist choose to write ‘a truth’ beneath the iconic image: We are here, together, for now.

“What is the significance of this then?”, the artist asks, “Josephine stares still from the screens. State of being alive, and state of being art. And state of death and the sphere of history.”