top of page

​WIKTOR DYNDO

• born 1983 in Warsaw, Poland
• 2002-2007 studies at Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Poland, Painting Department
• 2007 he received M.A. degree at Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Poland, Painting Department

individual exhibitions:

• 2024   Reality Is Created by Surprises, Galeria Willa - Miejska Galeria Sztuki, Łódź

• 2022   DATA, Szydłowski Gallery, Warsaw

• 2022   The Date, Zachęta - National Gallery, Warsaw

• 2021   Post-History (with Nina Haab), Galeria Szydlowski, Warsaw, Poland

• 2018   Internet Lies, Gallery MISR, Cairo, Egypt

• 2018   Anxiety, Contrast Gallery, Warsaw, Poland

• 2016   The Truth Lies at the Bottom of an Oil Well, Galeria Manhattan, Łódź, Poland

• 2015   Propaganda, Unit24 Gallery, London, United Kingdom

• 2013   May You Live in Interesting Times, aTAK Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
• 2011   And Summer was Beautiful that Year...11 September 2001, Bochenska Gallery, Poland
• 2010   Breaking News, Otwarta Pracownia, Cracow, Poland
• 2009   The Region of a Conflict, Bochenska Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
• 2007   Domes, Khaneh Honarmardan, Tehran, Iran

 

more important group exhibitions:

• 2024   From The Fish Eye Perspective , BWA Słupsk, 2024

• 2023   The Body Presence, Art D'Egypte, Cinema Radio, Cairo, Egypt, 2023

• 2021   In the Twinkling of an Eye, Szydłowski Gallery, Warsaw

• 2019   Damonkratie, A.K.T & EMMA Kreativzentrum, Pforzheim, Germany

• 2019  The Palace of Art. Young Polish Painting, National Museum in Gdansk

• 2018   Lejanias, Centre Del Carmen, Valencia, Spain

• 2017   XY, MODEM, Hungary

• 2017   XoXoXo, Salon Akademii Gallery, Warsaw

• 2016   The Drawers vol.2, Kasia Michalski Gallery, Warsaw

• 2016   Polish Contemporary Painting from The Krzysztof Musiał Collection, Centro de Arte Contemporaneo Velez, Malaga, Spain

• 2014   Records of Changes_2, PGS, Sopot, Poland

• 2013   Small is Big, Propaganda Gallery, Warsaw, Poland  

• 2012   Why doesn't everyone love adventures? A story about Jan Dziaczkowski, CCA Zamek Ujazdowski, Warsaw, Poland
• 2012   Sick Art, Jerusalem, Warsaw, Poland
• 2011   Atracción de la pintura, Madrid, Spain
• 2010   CRW - Contemporary Reflections on War, BKS Garage, Copenhagen, Denmark
• 2009   Bielska Jesień 2009, Galeria Bielska BWA, Bielsko-Biała, Poland
• 2009   Picture in the Public Space, C.K. Zamek, Poznań, Poland
• 2008   Painting Attraction, Witryna, Warsaw, Poland
• 2008   Rybie oko 5 Biennale, BWA, Słupsk, Poland

 

selected bibliography:

• Wiktor Dyndo. May You live in Interesting times, solo album, aTAK Gallery Publication, 2013

• Le Monde Diplomatique month periodical, multiple vol.  2013-2015

• Francois Godement, Czego chcą Chiny? (original title: Que veut la Chine?), Cover, Dialog Publishing House, 2016

• Państwo Islamskie, Cover, Dialog Publishing House, 2015

• Ibdaa Magazine, Cover, General Egyptian Book Organization, 2015

• Sofia Jabłonowska-Ratajska, Interperatations : May You Live in Interesting Times, EXIT Magazine, 4 (96), 2013

• Judith Butler, Frames of War (Polish edition), Cover, Institut Wydawniczy Książka i Prasa Publishing House, 2011

• Xavier Raufer Atlas radykalnego islamu (original title: Atlas de l'islam radical), Cover, Dialog Publishing House, 2011

• Jacek Kasprzycki, Dzieci Google Earth i “Trybuny Ludu” Artluk Magazine, (2), 2009

awards, scholarships:

• 2018   Young Lynxes Prize, Contemporary Lynx

• 2018   Scholarship of The Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, Poland

• 2015   Artinfo.pl Prize, Bielska Jesień 2015, Galeria Bielska BWA, Bielsko-Biała, Poland
• 2009   First Prize of the Picture in the Public Space competition, C.K. Zamek, Poznań, Poland
• 2007   Rector Prize for Diploma , J. Szajna Prize,  E. Tomaszewska Prize , Finalist of Simens Art Prize
• 2005   Scholarship to Department of Painting, Helwan University in Cairo, Egypt

Stach Szabłowski

THE GEOGRAPHY OF FEAR

2013

 

     What may the painter contribute to the discourse of global politics? At which point does the artist become a cartographer charting political maps of the world and marking the areas of conflict. How does the multidimensional experience of the individual struggling with the plethora of information on the globalized reality translate onto the two-dimensional picture surface. Wiktor Dyndo answers these questions by using means at the painter’s disposal: he paints geo-strategic concepts, shows the colors of ideologies, analyzes the aesthetic of power, represents visual signs of fear and manipulation.

 

The White Spot

 

     In a number of pictures Wiktor Dyndo refers to the convention of map. Cartography has always mingled with art. Both are essentially concerned with representing the world. Like the painter’s task, the cartographer’s job consists in conceptualizing a multi-dimensional reality and representing it through signs and forms. In this respect, cartography is closest to the strategies of modernist and avant-garde art with its proclivity for abstraction and conceptualism. The world turns into a circle or an ellipse, a territory into a geometrically complex area of color, a map of the world becomes a complex painterly composition.

     One of Dyndo’s cartographic works represents a map of the globe. The painter charts the system of meridians and parallels but there is nothing between the lines defining the globe’s topography: no continents, no oceans, no islands. The impression of the emptiness of this “undiscovered” world is emphasized by the graticule having been charted on the unprimed canvas which can be interpreted as an allegory of the pure pictorial space. The painting is entitled Peace and Quiet.

     The only land Dyndo has marked in this cartographic picture is Antarctica shown as a white shape on an otherwise empty map. Antarctica appears as a “white spot” not only because it is ice-bound but also because it is the only continent which has so far remained free of political boundaries in contrast to the rest of the world divided up between sovereign states. In other words, Antarctica does not feature on the world’s political map but Dyndo practices cartography à rebours. The lands divided up according to political criteria disappear from his picture and only Antarctica remains as the last preserve not defined by political allegiances – at least so far, as the continent and rich natural resources hidden underneath its permafrost have already become the subject of the great powers’ operations aiming at incorporating this last “white spot” into the global system of control and exploitation.

 

The Green Cloud

 

     Let’s now look at another map painted by Dyndo. He renders Europe outlined in black against a pale-pink background. A green cloud invades this delicate, flesh-colored land: the contour of the Old Continent barely shows through from under the irregular patches of applied green paint. The green cloud – is color associated with Islam – seems to approach from the direction of Muslim North Africa. The painting is entitled Phobia and represents the geography of fear. But what is the object of this fear? Is it religion? The threat of terrorism? Or the migration waves coming from The Maghreb?

     The empty space rendered in the Peace and Quiet becomes filled with details, contours and territories in Dyndo’s other works: Iraq and Iran, The Small Satan  (map of Israel), The Great Satan (map of the United States), Masr (image of Egypt), The Persian Gulf. Drafting the contours of states and whole regions, the painter simultaneously employs various conventions. Some refer to the classic cartography, others to different symbolic systems; occasionally the former mix up with the latter, as in The Small Satan and The Great Satan in which the contours of Israel and the United States are filled in with the pattern characteristic of the Palestinian headscarf keffiyeh, the trademark symbol of Arafat.

     Wiktor Dyndo’s cartographic project refers to the geographic vision presented in Samuel Huntington’s enormously influential book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996). In this brilliant geopolitical essay the author posited that in the post-Cold War world the ideological conflict between the Capitalist West and the recently fallen Communist Eastern Block would be replaced by conflict occurring between the world’s major civilizations: the clash of ideologies replaced by the “clash of civilizations.”  The masked Muslim jihad warrior – the anti-rational, religiously motivated enemy of secular modernization – would replace the Soviet “Big Brother” as the new strategic antagonist of the West. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the simplified reading of Huntington’s conception has served as the theoretical basis for waging the “war on terrorism” – prolonged and enfolding on many fronts of the West’s neo-colonial confrontation with the Islamic world.

     In Dyndo’s art, like in Huntington’s vision, the world’s geography is approached from a specific perspective. The actors starring in the global drama feature prominently on the map of the globe: the United States, Israel, Persian Gulf states. The axis of this world, propelled by the energy of “clash of civilizations”, is located in the Middle East which no longer appears as a mere place on Earth but turns into the archetypical “conflict zone.”

      Does Dyndo question this vision? If his intention is to criticize it, he hides it under the deadpan disguise of objective cartographer. He does not counter-posit any ideology to the extremely ideologized discourse of “the clash of civilizations.” He paints the facts: the geography of fear created in the minds of the people in the West by the media and politicians. He examines visual forms through which this state of mind manifests itself. And yet, the artist’s apparent political indifference is a form of resistance: in the world in which the governments require of the public opinion to form polarized views, the refusal to take a stand becomes a polemical voice.

 

The Discourse of Banners

 

     Likewise neutral is Dyndo’s approach to the aesthetic of power which sets the stage if global conflicts. He paints the series of banners – the emblems of territories which feature in his painted maps. He represents the flags of the European Union, Arab states, and also of Poland. One painting renders “the flag of the world” featuring red shapes of the continents set off against the white background: they resemble blood spattered on a white sheet. Some banners wave in the wind, others are limp. Occasionally, we glimpse a microphone set for an orator who is about to speak at some official international event, conference or state visit. But the speaker never appears in Dyndo’s pictures. There is a gaping void between the flags: the discourse is not articulated and there only remains the visual violence of symbols.

 

The Oriental Landscape

 

     The conceptual abstraction of political cartography and ideological abstraction of banner both refer to the notion of territory which in Dyndo’s paintings takes on the form of landscape. Entering the landscape is like penetrating through the surface of the map to examine what hides under its conventional forms. Dyndo’s landscapes are almost all Oriental landscapes. A bar under construction in the desert. A mirage obliterating the perspective of a road cutting through the Middle Eastern steppe. Clouds of smoke creeping behind the concrete facades of some settlement. An explosion set off against a palm grove. These landscapes are always deserted: the only trace of human presence is a Kalashnikov or rocket-launcher – the jihadist’s favorite weapons – propped up against the wall of a madrasa. Some landscapes are painted to resemble images delivered by spy satellites and used to plan and direct air strikes. Mosques are shown as seen from the air and the field of conflict gets transformed into constellations of pixels on the monitors of the army waging war on terrorism.

     The Oriental landscape has a long tradition in European painting coinciding with the development of modern thought and colonial politics. The modernizing West’s expansion to the pre-modern East corresponded to the need to create the Orientalist vision, to colonize the Orient through images. Delacroix painted his famous Women of Alger in 1834, just several months after France had launched the campaign which would result in the colonization of Algeria. It is hardly surprising that so many Orientalist works of art created in the 18th and 19th century in the colonial West are underlain with more or less ostentatious erotic fantasies. The Orient was the object of the desire of the West dreaming of subjecting and penetrating the Eastern countries. Almost forty years have passed since Edward Said in his classical book Orientalism showed the longevity of the West’s sexualized attitude towards the East. The book shows that the way the Orient was being imagined and portrayed by Western artists and writers had a profound effect on creating mental attitudes in Western societies which were conducive to political expansion. After the 9/11 attacks, Said’s perspective has proven relevant again in the face of the new Orientalism concerned with creating the stereotyped Muslim “Other” in the era of the “war on terrorism.”

 

The Surface of Events

 

     With his keen interest in the Middle East and the wealth of iconographic motifs he has drawn from the Muslim world, should Wiktor Dyndo be regarded as a neo-Orientalist? It may seem so at first glance especially that the painter refrains from clearly stating his political views. He makes no suggestions, drops no clues, does not wink at the viewer, and sends no comforting signals to reassure of his approach being “politically correct.” One of his paintings shows the view of Hurghada in Egypt. The holiday paradise is shrouded in an ominous bloody gloom of fire and from behind the frame of the image protrudes a green saber, the Arab fanatic’s weapon, doubtless striking at tourists. The piece reflects the darkest fears of the Polish tourist usually concerned with the political situation in the Middle East to the degree of its potential effect on his plans to enjoy cheap holidays in Egypt. Does Wiktor Dyndo share this nightmare with the crowd of holidaymakers fearful that one day the locals may stop serving them drinks and instead raise havoc in seaside resorts located in the areas of conflict?

     The answers to these questions lay on the surface of Dyndo’s works. The painter has travelled extensively through the Middle East and lived in Egypt for an extended period of time. He speaks and reads Arabic. And yet, having had first-hand experience of the Orient, he paints it from the perspective of somebody who has never traveled outside northern Europe and only knows the Middle East from TV reports. This perspective sets him apart from 19th-century Orientalists yearning for the exotic and voraciously exploring the Orient with ethnographic zeal. Exoticism is missing from Dyndo’s vision. His vision of the Orient is constructed of simplified, conventional forms which are closer to signs and ideograms than to realist representation.

    From the aesthetic perspective, his approach to imagery is informed by the lessons of post-Conceptual painting, Minimalsm, Pop-Art, and the Polish art of the early 21st century, particularly the Ładnie (“Prettily”) group. But there is more to his approach than creative processing of postmodern conventions and artistic strategies. His restrained, schematic style of representation is conducive to the visualization of the worldview formed on the basis of media reports, ideologized discourses, and propagandist manipulation.  The image of the Orient in Dyndo’s works bears more resemblance to a computer simulation than to reality.

      Like the map which is but a visual construct extremely simplifying the multi-dimensional landscape populated by individuals, communities, and societies and their complex interests and conflicts, the painter does not depict the world but renders its construed representation based on simplifications and stereotypes. He relies on flatly applied color, signs, and contours. His paintings have no depth. He focuses on the planar surface and, as the cartographer does, he reduces reality to flat images. Portraying global conflicts, he claims no right to resolve them, he refrains from moral judgments. We won’t learn from his paintings who is right and who is wrong in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and with whom he sides. And anyway, what if we knew? Instead of useless ideological declarations, Dyndo offers us something much more valuable: he focuses the viewer’s gaze on the surface of the picture and provokes him or her to try to penetrate underneath, to see what hides beneath the simplified image. At this point, his painting starts to stimulate the viewer’s critical thinking – the job the painter cannot and does not want to perform for the viewer.

 

     Finally, yet another recurring motif in Dyndo’s works has to be mentioned. It is the brilliant – a rough diamond which has been cut and faceted and polished to transform it into a gleaming jewel. In his pictures, brilliants appear set off against the burning oil fields and captions from TV news: occasionally, they may be splattered with blood. Today, a large portion of the world’s supply of diamonds comes from the areas of armed conflict. The perfect stone, the ultimate symbol of wealth and luxury becomes an allegory for dangerous entanglements of beauty and death, money and political manipulation. Cut and polished, the diamond becomes the perfect brilliant and at the same time it turns into a deceptive mirror which refracts light and splits up the image of the world into numerous fragments – a shimmering and volatile mosaic governed by no ruling “correct” perspective but composed of multiple points of view.

 

Ahmed Naji

Wiktor Dyndo’s uncut impressions 

2018

 

An overwhelming sense of excitement and familiarity arises the moment the viewer’s eye falls on Wiktor Dyndo’s work. Familiarity is caused by the flag-burning image, which has become a political fetish crowding the Internet and television. 

 

On the other hand, excitement is associated with the intense appearance of symbols in an extraordinary atmosphere. However, Dyndo’s flag-burning image, which frequents television coverage of mass demonstrations, does not propagandise a message. The exception is, nonetheless,  his lampoons of ‘the liar Internet’ in several paintings. Perhaps, Dyndo’s paintings on display in this exhibition carry eluding messages; the artist has probably shifted this task to the viewer.  

 

Initially, the viewer has the impression that there is a kind of communication between him/her and the paintings. Although contemporary art has become more complicated, nebulous and  intriguing,  Dyndo’s introduced stereotyped images and symbols, such as the national flags, politicians popular on television, and controversial images recurring in the media.  

 

However, familiarity and excitement quickly subside, creating a perplexing atmosphere. The viewer feels that the ground is moving as s/he searches the painting for a keyword(s).  

 

Although Dyndo’s symbols and images are not extraordinary, they do not display signs, which could draw our attention to the artist’s political leanings. He must be inviting the viewer to examine his technique and colour so closely and attentively that s/he could come across the artist’s eluding message therein.  

 

Dyndo must be aware that visitors, while touring his exhibition, would not stop browsing through their mobile phones. He has concerns that the visitors would do likewise by mistaking his paintings for being downloads. Therefore, the artist seeks a technique of intrigue, which could appeal to the visual language of the contemporary Internet captives. He cleverly treated  his images to produce new values, which could persuade the viewers to associate them with images recurring day and night, such as the images downloaded on the Internet’s, news highlights on television, [YouTube] uncut videos, images associated with political propaganda or the visual icons of nationalist regimes.  

 

Despite the vogue for the conceptual art, Dyndo keenly sought a conventional medium—the canvas—to express his ideas. He deliberately sought oil colours—not acrylic—to create a sense of a halo around the image.  

 

Dyndo named his oeuvre in this exhibition “Internet Lies”. His oil paintings are vertical; their dimensions are equal to the laptop’s or the dimensions of the book cover. As a result, the viewers find these paintings familiar, reminding them of the contemporary man’s first sources of images. 

Nonetheless, Dyndo’s oil paintings and his isolated symbols reveal the vast distance between the work and the political meaning the symbol could bear. The artist is fully aware that symbols bear different meanings in different environments. For example, Eastern and Western cultures would appreciate the same symbol differently. 

 

Dyndo’s artistic experiment is the product of two different cultures. The artist (b.1983) studied art in Poland and Egypt. He also exhibited his impressions in several Arab and Western countries.  An image of intersected Polish and Saudi flags gives an impression in Poland different from that, which an Arab culture would stir up.  The portrait of the Pope of the Vatican surmounting the statement “Internet Lies” must be stirring up a multitude of interesting interpretations. 

 

Dyndo’s art provokes suspicions. Open-minded visitors should not close their eyes. They should pay close attention to the whirlwind of images and paintings. That Dyndo is maintaining that the Internet is telling lies should draw our attention to the fact that reality is not a mansion built in the middle of a garden; perhaps, reality is concealed under a brushstroke in the surface of the canvas.             

Magda Milewska

THE TRUTH LIES AT THE BOTTON OF AN OIL WELL

2016

 

The stronger the political propaganda is orientated against people's convictions, the more it reinforces the resistance. These are the words of an outstanding Polish Islamist and Arabist Prof. Janusz Danecki.  In other words, the more we convince somebody of something, the less credible we become and we go against ourselves.  Only telling the truth works.

So what is the truth that Wiktor Dyndo shows through his paintings? A spare, almost schematic way of showing the fragment of reality casts the artist in a role of an impersonal but careful observer. Dyndo shows facts, but he does not take sides.  This is something a spectator must do in his or her conscience.

The world in Dyndo's paintings is usually uninhabited.  No one is standing there with the majestic flags in the background, so no one is responsible for the decisions made at the top level; there are no terrorists, so no one is guilty of the attacks;  there are no victims, so no one is the injured party. This shows that the truth seems to be more complex than we think.

Looking at the artist's paintings we experience  momentary peace of mind.  We see pictures with bright and vivid colours, devoid of too many details;  they do not weary, even calm nerves. The passage from the comfort zone to reflection takes no time.  After a moment, the mood changes diametrically. 

The beautiful, dignified flags turn out to have the flagstaffs ended with shiny, albeit slightly ominously sharpened tips;  moreover, some of them prove to be unstable; the soothing blue of the sky is cut by a black, smoking band which spells disaster;  in the shape of an idyllic country there festers a black wound; everyday objects such as a security gate are dressed in a characteristic keffiyeh motif and the diamond, in its bloody version, ceases to be the symbol of gloss, wealth and living in luxury - it shows what kind of dramatic events are necessary to pay for its extraction. Spectators quickly realize that all these scenes reflect  their modern fears and anxieties.  Although the artist does not identify with them, he appears to understand or at least notice and ruthlessly highlight them.

Małgorzata Piwowar

WIKTOR DYNDO. MALARZ KTÓRY NIE POLUJE NA WIDZA

RZECZPOSPOLITA, 2016

 

W łódzkiej galerii Manhattan trwa wystawa Wiktora Dyndo. Skłania do przemyśleń o współczesnym świecie. To dziś rzadkość.

„Tytuł wystawy „Prawda leży na dnie naftowego szybu” to trawestacja angielskiego przysłowia, które prawdę lokuje na dnie studni” – przypomina kuratorka wystawy Magda Milewska w krótkiej opowieści o pracach artysty.

 

Obrazów na wystawie jest kilkanaście, ale każdy z nich jest solidnym materiałem do przemyśleń, zaproszeniem widza do refleksji. Kiedy na jednym z największych pokazywanych obrazów czyli „Upadku” (150x200) spośród długiego ustawionych w szyku (choć jak się mu przyjrzeć – niedoskonałym) flag państw - jedna leży – wygląda jakby pozostałe biernie się temu przyglądały. W dodatku choć flagi są całkowicie realnie przedstawione, to jednak płótna zapełnione barwami i symbolami zwisają w sposób uniemożliwiający ich identyfikację. Zatem, która leży? Dlaczego leży?

 

Kiedy z kolei oglądamy – także monumentalne „Schody” – widzimy zapełnioną nimi całą przestrzeń płótna. Białe stopnie z rozpostartym na środku czerwonym chodnikiem i leżącym u ich stóp dywanem – namalowane zostały w taki sposób, że z im bliższej odległości im się przyglądamy, tym większe widzimy szpary między białymi stopniami…

 

Jest i obraz „Game over”, w którym na stalowo-błękitnym tle łopocząca biała flaga zakrywa czarny dym. Zero zbędnych szczegółów, nic, co odwracałoby, albo rozmywało uwagę widza.

 

Na obrazach Wiktora Dyndo tylko pozornie ludzie są nieobecni. To oni są sprawcami rzeczywistości, którą on uważnie obserwuje i o której opowiada. Wiele z prac, które znalazły się na wystawie dotyczy Bliskiego Wschodu, a zainteresowanie nim u tego twórcy (ur. 1983) nie jest podyktowane modą, ale głębszym namysłem nad tą tematyką - artysta był stypendystą Wydziału Malarstwa Uniwersytetu Helwan w Kairze. Przygląda się on międzynarodowym konfliktom, terroryzmowi i polityce z dystansu odrzucającego doraźne oceny, czy opowiadanie się po którejkolwiek ze stron. I tu trzeba dodać, że Wiktor Dyndo jest nie tylko precyzyjnym malarzem kiedy jego ręka nanosi na płótno farbę, ale też myślącym człowiekiem. Nie poluje na emocje widza, tylko stawia pytania, bo dla niego prawda jest złożona. To dobrze mu wróży na przyszłość.

 

To ostatnie dni pokazu, który potrwa do piątku.

Agnieszka Sural

LIFTING OF REALITY

2013

 

     “This story is happening in our times ...” – is the first thought that crosses our minds when looking at Wiktor Dyndo’s new paintings. And so, we know the “when”, but “where”? Diamonds drenched in blood or placed in front of burning oil wells in Kuwait presented in “The Stain“ and “Lessons of Darkness“ – remind us of a story that had begun some time ago in South Africa. It is there that the largest deposits of this precious crystal are located and where control over them was seized by rebel groups. The sales of “blood diamonds” played a major role in financing the operations of revolutionary, military and terrorist organizations from all over the world. They came to represent  violence and death, contradicting the popular image of diamonds as a symbol of love and happiness.

 

     The pixellated UN headquarters in New York presented in “Distortions – Security Council“ – recalls the simultaneously idealistic and utopian belief that it would be possible to create an international organization that could safeguard worldwide order and security. Several years before Dyndo painted that image, the United Nations had published a map presenting the actual proportions of countries and regions. Comparing to maps drawn out by Europeans centuries ago, it turned out that Scandinavia is actually much larger, Africa longer and Europe much smaller than traditionally presented. Another artist‘s painting presents a map shown from the perspective of the Chinese empire. Oriented towards the South, the map places China in the middle, leaving Western culture somewhere in the periphery. The growing domination of the communist country and its spectacular economic success over the last three decades are also apparent in the painting “Chinese Vase”, which presents a Chinese porcelain towering over a European art collection in a museum.

 

     One of the first images of the international political scene that Wiktor Dyndo remembers were Christiane Amanpour’s reports from the Gulf War that he watched on CNN as a child. The famous reporter delivered news of dramatic events, while traveling the conflict zone in a tank. The artist, a son of an Afghanistan and Iranian studies expert, has since directed his interests towards the balance of powers in international foreign policy. Dyndo is captivated by the drama he witnesses. “Photo and video reportages from the front lines of battle contain beautiful shots in which smoke clouds and explosions appear exceptionally picturesque,” said Dyndo.

 

     Dyndo borrows images from television and Internet. He recalls them on canvas in pieces, juxtaposing and giving them new meaning. The artist never takes any sides. He is an observer who ascertains but does not judge, leaving the freedom of interpretation to his audience. What we see in his paintings are mainly landscapes, featuring often repeated motif of a cloudless sky – a nearly azure space, where bad decisions, tragedies or exclusions occur.

 

     Aside from his fascination with armed conflict, terrorism and interests of individual nations and religions, Wiktor Dyndo also pays attention to the refined aesthetics that accompanies the processes. War reports in magazines and newspapers are often printed next to jewelry or perfume advertisements. News channels on TV interrupt their reports with ad breaks. Dyndo includes this created reality of information media in his paintings.

 

     His works oscillate around the sensations of fear, terror and beauty, things that can both fascinate and seduce as well as disturb. The artist points out one place in the world that is, for now, full of peace and order. In his painting “Peace, quiet” – on unprimed canvas – he painted a map of the world with all the continents gone but one - the Antarctic. The empty globe is mesmerizing in its vision of the end of the world.

 

     In his painting Dyndo refers to the concept of aestheticization, which in modern culture affects all things. Not only pieces created by artists and dealing with the most drastic events but also media and entertainment are affected by aesthetic conventions. In today’s world, globalisation, besides affecting trade and production, causes the domination of a uniform popular culture together with transnational idols and role models. The result is a universal aestheticization of reality. In the case of the arts this process began in the 1920s when avantgarde artists demolished the barricades dividing art and reality. The first known attempt to deprive art of its aura of holiness and to include in its scope “ready mades” is Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain” – a urinal placed in a museum space. Dadaists and futurists used abstraction to search for the hidden structures of objects, however the final result of these actions was aestheticization, perceived by Jean Baudrillard as a decidedly negative phenomenon (connected with the overproduction of images in the modern world, images in which there is nothing to see). The aestheticization of reality in his view has led to the impression that an oeuvre is everywhere but it cannot be distinguished from other objects.

Wolfgang Welsch followed the same line of thought as he described the process of aestheticization of everyday life on two levels, distinguishing between superficial and in-depth aestheticization. The first one is most visible and is essentially about making everyday reality pretty, using aesthetic elements. Welsch described it as “styling”, embellishment, “face-lifting“ of reality.

 

     Just as the piece “Lego. Concentration Camp” by Zbigniew Libera has revealed the practice of taming violence that occurs in our culture as well as our arrogance towards other cultures or distant historical events, Dyndo seems to be the only Polish artist who negates the above thesis. By touching upon international conflicts the artist ponders the amount of time that must pass in order for the problem to become an element of our culture, or perhaps even popular culture, strapped into the neoliberal machine. The farther we reach into history, the greater the indifference to past tragedies, particularly if they occurred in geographically distant locations.

 

     And so Kant’s principle of combining aesthetics with ethics, which states that, what is beautiful must also be good, appears completely outdated. 

 

 

 

 

Jestem akapitem. Kliknij tutaj, by dodać własny tekst albo mnie edytować. To proste.

Justyna Żelasko

PSYCHOPATOLOGIA ŻYCIA CODZIENNEGO WŚRÓD OBRAZÓW

Kontakt, 2013

Kilkanaście obrazów i rysunków prezentowanych na wystawie „Obyś żył w ciekawych czasach” to sny, w których ktoś pogrążył się przed telewizorem podczas wieczornych wiadomości. I nie spał dobrze.

W znanej i lubianej (zwłaszcza przez badaczy kultury wizualnej) scenie Karabinierów Godarda dwaj chłopcy, co to poszli na wielką wojnę, przynoszą swoim dziewczętom łup. Nie byle jaki, bo w walizce jest cały świat: na pocztówkach. Jest to świat skatalogowany, karabinierzy rozwiązują sznureczki i uwalniając kolejne talie, wykrzykują: „budynki! środki transportu! sklepy! dzieła sztuki, fabryki, bogactwa ziemi: węgiel, ropa! cuda natury: góry, kwiaty, pustynie, krajobrazy, zwierzęta! pięć kontynentów, planety…”. Scenę tę przytacza Susan Sontag w swoim zbiorze esejów O fotografii, pisząc: „Zbierać fotografie – to zbierać świat. (…) jako nieruchome zdjęcie obraz fotograficzny jest tani i łatwo go wyprodukować i przechowywać”, podczas gdy „filmy i programy telewizyjne rozświetlają ściany, migocą i gasną”. Wiktor Dyndo pokazuje drugie życie tego zdematerializowanego strumienia obrazów, który – opierając się doraźnym próbom porządkowania – przepływa nam prosto do podświadomości. Gdzie zajrzeć niełatwo. Chyba że… Kilkanaście nowych obrazów i rysunków prezentowanych na wystawie Obyś żył w ciekawych czasach to sny, w których ktoś pogrążył się ostatnio przed telewizorem podczas wieczornych wiadomości. I nie spał dobrze. Bo choć były piękne, to niepokojące.
 
Opisana kiedyś przez pewnego psychiatrę, którego nazwisko akurat wypadło mi z głowy, praca sennego marzenia to tyleż niepewna hipoteza naukowa, co poręczne narzędzie badania kultury. Nieświadome treści rodzące się w kontakcie z obserwowaną rzeczywistością wychodzą na jaw w snach – choć w formie szyfru: zagęszczenia, przemieszczenia, symbolizacji. Podejmując temat naporu treści wizualnych i ich wpływu na formowanie tożsamości Wiktor Dyndo sprawdza, co krystalizuje się w naszym wewnętrznym laboratorium obrazów. Czy przewagę zdobywa komponent estetyczny (piękno płonących krajobrazów, ekstaza eksplozji, refleksy diamentów) czy lękowy (chińskie wazy zasłaniają rembrandty, mapy się deformują)? Jak wyglądają nasze spełnione życzenia? Eksponowany na wystawie motyw zniekształcenia obrazu wskazuje zarazem na filtry, przez które patrzymy na rzeczywistość, jak na proces, w którym powstają. A że nakładanie się potężnych obrazów i mapy geopolitycznej może wytworzyć mieszankę wybuchową? O tym na warszawskim Krakowskim Przedmieściu, gdzie rezyduje galeria, nie trzeba nikogo przekonywać.
 
Ale i autor nie twierdzi, że strumień, który odbieramy, jest wyjściowo amorficzny – sugeruje raczej, że płynie on pewnymi wyżłobionymi kanałami. Wydaje się, że proponowana analiza jest dwukierunkowa: bada nasze ukształtowane już lęki, motywacje, ale i ukryte ramy pokazywanych obrazów. Z czego zbudowane? „Obyś żył w ciekawych czasach” to perfidne złorzeczenie – jak wiadomo, najciekawsze są konflikty. Werbunek przez obrazy, ich wpływ na kształtowanie się naszej wrażliwości (i perspektywy) politycznej, to niewątpliwie ważny motyw wystawy (swoją drogą, również wiodący temat książki Judith Butler Ramy wojny, której polskie wydanie sprzed dwóch lat na okładce komentuje reprodukcja jednego z obrazów Dyndo). Autor przypomina, że obraz świata bywa dla nas rodzajem wojennego łupu, jest zawsze uzgodniony z geopolitycznymi współrzędnymi. Prezentowanym płótnom daleko jednak do doraźnej agitacji. Choć autor wyraźnie ma swoich ulubionych protagonistów wieczornych wiadomości, to tak jak w filmie Godarda, obecna tu wojna jest dość nieokreślona, jej terenem jest cały świat. Na pierwszy plan wybija się raczej przewodni temat Karabinierów (i stąd pewnie wyjściowe skojarzenie), wyraźny we wspomnianej na początku scenie: zapośredniczenie rzeczywistości przez jej reprezentacje. Temat, którego wizualną metaforą może być jeden z ulubionych motywów Dyndo – mapa.
 
Wiktor Dyndo w Galerii aTAK do 30 listopada.

Zofia Jabłonowska-Ratajska

INTERPRETATIONS: MAY YOU LIVE IN INTERESTING TIMES

EXIT No 4 (96) 2013

 

     A row of flags standing next to each other - the American, Polish, European; flags of Israel and Palestine against the blue background facing opposite directions, as though there was a different wind blowing for each of them; maps and political geography of the world.

 

     DESERTED LANDSCAPES, A SET OF MISSILES, FUSES AND EXPLODING BOMBS; Arabic sabers and Chinese vases - for Wiktor Dyndo all these have been the elements to compose his pictures of. From the very beginning of his creative path he has followed the times he has happened to live in, interested in global problems and conflicts, constantly searching for the signs and symbols of his own. The "May You Live in Interesting Times" exhibition at the aTak Gallery shows a cut diamond as a symbol that enters into the political reality of his pictures; perfect, neutral beauty, and the artist's mirror to focus on the multidimensional and broken world. The diamond, that is "indestructible", appears in a whole variety of contexts, occasionally in the core of events, for example against the background of burning oil wells, isolated, stained with blood. At another occasion it appropriates a whole space of the picture, suspended in black or greenish landscape.

 

    Dyndo has painted real situations permeated with symbols rooted in the contemporary culture codes. Realistic aspects of this painting involve copying photographic reproduction of reality. Thus, the artist offers a pastiche of reality "referring one code to the other" (Roland Barthes). In this case media, TV and Internet transmissions - the world experienced by means of its photographic description that applies universal, repetitive associations - confirm the authentic, "fact related" representation. Even the logic of the palette has been a result of universal approach and definitions: blue refers to the blue only; red to the red. It seems that while painting these pictures the artist has confirmed the conviction that today there is no other reality than indirect, and there is no other way to experience this, if not for reflection and semblance. In spite of all these he has not ceased observing fragments of the present, in pursue for a thorough insight into the world and its mechanisms. The mentioned diamond has been turned into a kind of a "magnifying glass"; shining ominous beauty, since it has been stigmatized or "stained" with the context it has been placed in ("The Stain" picture). The diamond - the way it has been composed within the picture - contains the mystery that has not been foretold by a flat, poster like surface of the canvas. A cut diamond, by its very nature, offers abundance of decomposed light and multiple perspective, being a kind of a magic ball the artist looks into, even though the picture reveals nothing but a map of Europe covered by a green spot ("Phobia") or a fire explosion on a heavenly beach ("Boom").

 

     The artist, exactly like all of us, has been a victim of global information where Auschwitz photos are placed next to the pictures of celebrities following their botox treatment, yet another terrorist attack is mentioned next to yet another husband of a movie star. In this sense, the artist has not been dealing with unknown topics, nevertheless he has showed their destructive power involving the constant presence with no way out. Has this been a subsequent stage of social and political oriented art? Wiktor Dyndo has neither entered into the dialogue with reality, nor taken a specific stand on it. It might be that the painting medium has helped him to remain detached while reproducing the copied. Painting, however, has been approached as a means to transform photography, nevertheless it keeps photographic perspective and palette. There is no place for a game of colors, chiaroscuro or any painting like gesture to stress the presence and individual attitude of the artist. The latter, in a sense, has been left outside, as the one that merely indicates certain situations and reminds of problems and conflicts, describes them with specific codes and symbols, never expressing whether he is for or against.

 

     Wiktor Dyndo has been offering representations of the world with defined narration and signs alphabet to make watching easier, the alphabet being the one set by photography, media and Internet. But what does it mean? What does it contain? Through persistent repetitions and recollections of the contemporary set of images, the artist does not let one cease wondering on it.

 

Andrzej Pałys

MAY YOU LIVE IN INTERESTING TIMES

2011

 

     The paintings of Wiktor Dyndo apparently show us the Orient  that we know: bomb attacks, a permanent war on terror, an ever-present theme of an Arafat shawl pattern or Islamic ornamentation.  His works bring associations with Orientalism, a trend in European culture which developed in modern times and reached its peak towards the end of the nineteenth century. Although this association is correct, it would be wrong to think of Dyndo as a continuator of Orientalism. 

 

     When we compare the works of the 19th-century Orientalists with the paintings by Dyndo, we can see immediately their contrasting significance. While the Orient in the old-time painting usually appears to be the ancient Arabia Felix, Dyndo's paintings today show us, in the first place, an atmosphere of menace and strangeness. We could say that since the events of September 11 the world has undergone a major transformation and that what we can observe today is this famous clash of civilizations, which is depicted by Dyndo as a painter of the Orient. However, this would be an erroneous opinion. 

 

     The most important difference between the old-time Orientalist painters and the art of Wiktor Dyndo lies in the very nature of the painting. Orientalist artists travelled to the Orient, depicted the fragments of the world by which they were fascinated, subjected them to aesthetization and used them to produce a coherent idealized narrative of a far-flung land of happiness. Their works featured  the image of the reception of the Orient in Europe that corresponded with the dreams and longing of the European townspeople. Wiktor Dyndo, however, uses as his point of departure the images of the Orient that we know from the electronic mass media, the images that are present in mass imagination. While Orientalist artists created a fragmentary image of the Orient, Dyndo unveils a fragmentary and false character of this image, which is enhanced by a minimal use of formal measures. For that reason, his paintings represent, to a higher extent than the East, our attitude towards the Orient, which is still based on superficial judgments and emotions.             

 

    The art of Wiktor Dyndo reveals a certain important feature of Western culture. We may say that the portrayal of the Orient enables us to express our mass emotions rather than  to get acquainted with Oriental culture; in the earlier times, those were the dreams, while today these are the feelings of fear and anxiety. 

bottom of page