Piotr Uklański

Early work and influences

Piotr Uklanski is from Warsaw, Poland where he studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts. He later came to New York where he studied photography at Cooper Union. He first emerged on the art scene in New York in mid-1990s. When he first arrived in New York he explains, "I studied painting, but in the evenings I was doing performances. The performances, at the time, I was interested in for photographs. It was sort of like I was creating an image in the performance, and that in some way led me to my interest in photography. And interestingly, I would dog sit, I had to make money. [laughs] I lived in New York, I didn't have any support, I was the classic "got off the plane to go to school." So I worked in the studios, and I think the two collided. With people, like Guy Bourdin—at the time I did not know who Guy Bourdin was—you realize that you can work in the commercial world of photography and still make art. That's what I was aiming at. That's not exactly how I ended up supporting myself as an artist, but that was the interest that I took when it came to photography."

"Uklański's willingness to take on potentially controversial subjects draws polemical reactions."

http://www.gagosian.com/artists/piotr-uklanski

"In addition to the survey of his own work, Uklański scoured the Met's archives to curate his own show, "Fatal Attraction: Piotr Uklański Selects from the Met Collection," that explores the themes of Eros (life force) and Thanatos (death drive) in a neighboring gallery."

"It used to be easy because I would just have an idea and was able to drop everything and go after this idea. So, let's say I was doing photographs and then I moved to film, or from film to painting, from painting to fiber art—it gets increasingly hard, because you never really abandon the previous body. While I stopped intensely working on photographs, I always did photographs over the years. At some point, you end up dragging nine bodies of work and, you know, there's only 24 hours in a day. [laughs] So it's a lot harder, but it's fun. I don't think that an artist that works with multiple bodies is more interesting than one that works with one, but it does help make it more interesting." (quote from ulkanski)

http://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/piotr-uklanski-metropolitan-museum-of-art/

Materials and style

Piotr Uklanski can not be defined by the style or material of his work. Photography can be considered his primary media, however, the materials in his art range from resin paintings, collage, linen, plant fiber, and aluminium, to pencil shavings, colored graphite, and ceramics. Uklanski has explored photography, painting, sculpture, installation, and even released a feature film. His works have been displayed in galleries and well-known museums around the world; he has also created public works such as billboards and graffiti. Uklanski uses unconventional materials by weaving them together or finding other means to adhere them to each other or to canvas. He has attempted work by "painting without a brush" using oil and canvas One of his most well known pieces, Untitled (Dance Floor) 1996, is a functioning floor composed of sound activated, square boxes which light up, reminiscent of a minimalist grid.

The style of Uklanski's work is as wide ranging as his use of materials, but each piece is provocative in itself. His work has challenged societal views on death and sex, and also often explores political movements as they intersect with society and media An example would be his notable work, The Nazis (1998), in which Uklanski displays movie stills of well-known actors playing Nazis, with color and contrast changes in the style of Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe (Marilyn) 1967. In his 2015 exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Fatal Attraction: Piotr Uklanski Photographs, and Fatal Attraction: Piotr Uklanski Selects from the Met Collection, Uklanski's styles were distinct both in his own work, and through the generally shocking choices of photographs he collected from the museum's archives. Some of his pieces, like Untitled (Dance Floor) 1996 and Untitled (The Nazis) 1998 are clean and neat whereas other pieces like Untitled (Story of the Eye) 2013 are messy, over flowing, or frayed. One of his sculptures, Untitled (Polonia) 2005 is minimalist but monumental, made of glass, and stands as a response to a political event. Uklanski's style changes completely based on the concept and material used to create his piece.

Dance Floor

Created in 1996, this installation piece is composed of glass, an aluminum-raised floor structure and computer-controlled LED and sound system. It is a fully functioning disco dance floor with synchronized music. It creates an atmosphere for social interaction where the viewers complete the piece. Uklanski stated that he wanted to create a work whose goal was to give the viewer pleasure.(citation needed)

The Nazis

Created in November 2000, was an exhibition made up of 164 color photographs of Polish and other foreign actors who played Nazis in film. (citation needed) The point of this collection of work is to question how the handsome actors seduce the viewer and blind them to the evil truth about the evil and ruthlessness of Nazism. The exhibition eventually got closed down and some of the works were destroyed as a result of scandal that erupted after the exhibition was up and running. Uklanski stated "The portrait of a Nazi in mass culture is the most prominent example of how the truth about history, about people is distorted. This is all the more important to me in that this is the main source of information about those times, and for many people – the only one." (citation needed)

Untitled (Story of the Eye)

While exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, Uklanski's abstract sculpture Untitled (Story of the Eye) almost stole the viewers' attention from his photography works that were hung on the walls around it. Made of multiple layers of fiber-reactive dyed oxidized jute and hemp textile, cotton and nylon rope, polyester batting, resin, aluminum, and steel. The piece peers over its viewers at 12 feet in height. The work doesn't look like a rendition of an eye immediately, until the viewer notices the overlapping bright orange and white weaved centerpiece, hanging by rope of the same colors. Wrapped and sculpted around the dangling pupil are larger pieces of material fashioned together with a thicker rope. Instead of continuing the use of bright colors, a deep burgundy, dark violet, grey, and silver tinged blue material are threaded through one another, creating an enormous eye muscle. Towards the bottom of the piece, each different colored fabric, except the burgundy, transform into braided tassels with fringe at the end- a couple of which are orange from the pupil's tassels- which hang heavy, dragged down by gravity. Uklanski's artistic choices with this piece demonstrate his Modernism style and his appreciation for visual pleasure, ensuring that looking upon the sculpture is easy, following the lines of the work create a soft and light looking structure, even though the color and materials themselves are quite the opposite. In fact, due to the expressive use of color and dramatic draping of material one might be reminded of stage designs by Polish artists in the 50's and 60's.

Selected solo exhibitions

Selected group exhibitions