Beyond the identity principle

"Beyond the identity principle" Exhibition project curator: Joanna Dudek Contemporary overall visual culture reinforces an obsessive validation through the mirror of identity. Accordingly, identity in art, the identity of the artist, determines the content and its meaning in the artistic mainstream, relegating to the background its potential universality. Based on the optical agreement, the rectangular paradigm, heir to the Renaissance window, as viewers, we expect to place ourselves at the centre. My recent work deals with the reflection upon the unspoken agreement imposing on us such central, patriarchal position. Considering painting, I have always been more interested in the relational phenomenon of encounter with the viewer than the actual content itself. Painting has always been for me the simplest, most effective form of questioning the obvious. Seemingly the most banal gesture of reformatting the rectangular shape of the canvas, depriving the viewer of the illusion of his/her centrality, becomes the starting point for a broader reflection regarding contemporary, unquestionable strategy of representation existing in the art itself as well as in the institutional politics of art. The anamorphosis, introduced in the Holbein's 'The Ambassadors' (1533) - a political painting of its time, is not just a purely optical effect, but in fact a conceptual gesture, making us reflect upon the staffage of the 'official version', flattering our illusory sense of being 'at the centre'. The periphe/real, non-central gaze frees us from narcissistic involvement, enabling critical distance. Identity is not a value in itself. For the artist, it should only be an inspiration that is carefully examined from the sidelines. Dominik Lejman 2025 Photoghaphs: Sonia Bober