Piotr Wyrzykowskiaka Peter Style

S e l e c t e d w o r k s
 "Only Those Who Planned It Will Survive",
video installation, 50x50 cm, old books, drawings on paper, LCD monitor, Moscow Biennale, 09. 2009.
In the original American materials from the 60s to the 80s, targeting families inhabiting their own detached houses, Wyrzykowski came
across various architectural solutions to the construction of bunkers, all of a DIY character. The projects ranged from low-cost adaptation
of cellars and closets to reinforced, underground, concrete structures. In Wyrzykowski's work the projects come alive owing to merging
them with moving figures from the video. Every video-poster is an independent story, a scene form the life of a family taking refuge - a
short excerpt from their attempts to preserve 'normality' in such different circumstances (e.g. celebrating birthday, preparing a meal,
children playing). (K. Nowak)
 "Love Chapel"
action in public space, Gdansk, 07.2009.
Welcome to Gdańsk –the city of love and passion!

Have you already met that someone special with whom you would like to spend the rest of your life?
Sure you have!
Follow your heart and express your feelings – get married!

The wedding ceremony lasts 15 minutes and the only thing you need is… a credit card (valid, of course).
The only risk is that it’s very simple to go from “just married” to "just divorced".
Truth be told most of the unions contracted in the legendary Las Vegas did not last very long, but it may different for you in Gdańsk!!! Take the risk of love and
passion!
 "Concert for Cinema Projectors" - Epitaph for 27 cinemas
4 channel video performance, former "Zawisza" cinema, Gdańsk Wrzeszcz, 11.208
 "Beta Nassau - installation"
4 channel video installation , Wro Art Center, Wrocław, 06.2008

Video work from 1993 (rearage for

installation) is a natural
animation without a computer,
without post-production. Just a
switching-on the camera. It's
fragment of reality with
contemporary Lascaux Cave
passing in front of our eyes.
Work in the collection of MOMA,
New York.
 "Beer Drinkers Monument - Project"
video intervention in public space, Gdańsk, 07.2008
 "Manhunt"
7 channel video installation, 600x350 cm, CCA Zamek, Warszawa, 2006
The work was inspired by the monumental architecture of the Soviet-era subway in Kiev, Ukraine. The subway belongs to the category of
“no-places”, such as airports or train stations, that people visit only when they transfer from one place to another. In the night, the
desolate platforms and corridors resemble the sets of classic science fiction movies whose plot takes place on a space station,
suspended somewhere beyond time and space, in the a utterly “wordless” place. Following the camera through the undergroundʼs
mysterious spaces, we can get the impression that what we are seeing are fragments of a virtual world of the computer game such as
Doom. This unreal space results in a disturbing suspicion that perhaps the emptiness is but an illusion and in the dark recesses there
lurks something strange, some Other, who has been born into this world deserted by everything human. The viewer watches this other
world through the round holes in the thick wall, put in bizarre position of a post-apocalyptic ape curiously watching the remnants of some
strange civilization. This provokes a disturbing ambiguity which is further emphasized by the fact that the wall is covered with three-
dimensional relief forms resembling H.R. Gigerʼs fantastic visions, combining biological forms with advanced technology. We donʼt know
whether the empty spaces are the result of some past catastrophe, as, after all. The underground tunnels also play the role of nuclear
shelters, or have they been seized by Aliens whose traces can be found on the relief? And who are those others? Hybrids of unclear
identity, evoking fear and a sense of threat resulting from the fact that Them are Them, but isnʼt it so that Them are also Us?
"Manhunt" (fragment) light-boxes, 150x74 cm
detail
 "Performance # 1"
multimedia performance, Wro Art Center, TransVizualia, Wroclaw, Gdansk, 2008
 ...donʼt think about politics! In newspapers – whores! on the radio – whores! On TV – whores! Mao, whore, Fidel, a screwed whore! On
the net only whores and faggots, at elections – whores! Democracy – became whore, the Parliament became whore! The president –
fuck, itʼs not your president! The right wing, the governor, the candidate – whoooores!!!! What petitions??? What labour unions??? What
revival??? Whores!!! (Serhij Zadan, "Anarchy in Ukr")
 "Toma, Dylan and Me"
Photo, 350 x 300 cm, FAIT Gallery, Krakow, 2006
 "Comunnostalgie"
video installation, LCD monitors, light-boxes, 300x250 cm, CCA, Warsaw, 2004

Work based on W. Maiakovsky poems.

 "Atomic Love"
photo and video, 100x100 cm, 2002. (with Illia Chichkan)

“Atomic Love” is the image of a post-nuclear world. A couple of lovers wanders through the deserted site of the former Chernobyl nuclear
plant in the search for extreme experiences. Dressed in silver protective suits, they try to conduct a romantic walk through an area where
radiation ranges between 50 -120 micro roentgen per hour. This is no longer a futuristic vision, this is science-fiction becoming science-
reality.
The project was shoot in the closed zone of the Chernobyl’s nuclear plant.

Still frames from video

Photos selection
 "Defenders"
Photo and video, 2001. (with I. Chichkan)
“They do not know it, but they are doing it.”

The simple phrase by Marx adequately had been his own way to succinctly describe how human behavior is so often disengaged from a
cognition of action in structuring an illusion of ideological proportions. When we look at the images of military officers languorously posing
in gestures of staged repose placed next to the advertising from fashion magazines, we may simply assume a purposeful juxtaposition
that clearly alludes to a mimicry that speaks of the perversity of power. However, these are not mere military officers neutrally staged in a
visual game of war versus dollar. They are members of an elite brigade responsible for the launching of ballistic missiles for the Ukrainian
army. Furthermore, they are a brigade also responsible for the gross error of striking a passenger flight overhead the Crimean peninsula
during military exercises. The project rendered by artists Iliya Chichkan and Peter Style speaks of a more complicated notion of fetish
that reverberates between Marxian and Freudian interpretation to speak of disavowal and displacement as a means to substitute
ideology in the creation of a necessary illusion either to deal with pathological drives such as the death drive in indicating a human
psychic apparatus subordinated to blind automatism that extends beyond pleasure seeking and self preservation.
Chichkan and Style’s project including photographs and video documentation extend beyond a bracketing of a prototypical “look” evoking
staged fashion photography implicit to advertising. The coded images allude to a discourse of desire immersed in the fetish as instigating
an invisible movement that is almost physical in nature be it in the purchase of the commodity and the circulation of goods and hence
money. Or be it in the notion of the military in the storage and accumulation of weaponry. Both point to systems of harbored secrets and
illusions structured in the name of survival be that in psychic terms within protectorates of ideology. The Prada mule or the ballistic
missile share in their existence as enigmatic objects that are sensuous, suprasensible and social. They are a fetish that displace ideology
in creating a necessary reality, but one that is nevertheless constructed and illusory.

Marta Kuzma
Selected photos

"Dior"
"Goochi"
"Custo"
"Hugo Boss"
"Bruberry"