"To shake all dirty hands"

If you thought the dumbest conspiracy theory was the one about a flat earth, welcome to Tartaria. A world-spanning civilization of magnificently mysterious technologies and dazzlingly decorative buildings that was swept from the earth somewhere in the mid-19th century by a global mud flood. What we know is barely the tip of its former glory, history has been rewritten, and the truth wants to be hidden from us. However, indefatigable Internet users find irrefutable evidence in the form of photomontages, photos of world exhibitions, original graphics and memes. All it takes is proper hindsight and everything comes together perfectly, especially when one knows little. For example, no one asks where the mud flood came from. It doesn't matter. Neither does what's around now. Myths turn out to be more interesting, easier, cleaner. They don't besmirch like reality does.

In the Grey House Foundation's competition exhibition, however, five male and female artists, unlike the conspiracy zealots, look around and let themselves get dirty. Their art, seemingly different, is united in unsealing, in looking at the other, including the non-human. Exploring the mud of reality - in the sense of a world in which orders move and forms and entities mix on equal terms. There is in these gestures a descent from the top of the tower and an attempt to build new communities. And to do so, it is sometimes enough to want to "shake all the muddy hands," even if they are devoid of hands.

Artists: 

Paweł Kasprzak, 

Jan Kowal, 

Wiktoria Kieniksman, 

Michał Maliński, 

Aleksandra Olszar.

Curator: Kamil Kuitkowski

 Szara Kamienica Gallery | Cracow