ANXIETY

 

 

 

Orientalism began in Europe at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. The contemporary, especially understood, exotism manifested itself in paternalistic treatment of the policy of the Middle East and fascination with everything that is "unknown" - complicated religious rituals, mysticism, "wild" sexuality. As a result, for centuries the East was perceived as a geopolitical and cultural opposition to the West, identifying it with what is immature and imperfect.

In the 1990s, after the First World War in the Persian Gulf, the Middle East began to combine primarily with terrorism and, consequently, ruthless fighting and humanitarian disasters. Pictures of lush nature, beautiful odalisques and harems have been replaced by terrifying war relations, which quickly captured the image of the contemporary Orient as a place of constant danger.

 

The exhibition by Wiktor Dyndo oscillates around the issues of the new, 20th-century and twenty-first century Orientalism present in popular iconography, culture and media performances. The artist looks at the contemporary ideas of the Middle East and on this basis creates pictorial comments deliberately devoid of postcolonial exoticism. In his work, the most important motives of this trend appear: xenophobia, islamophobia or fear politics.

 

Dyndo inscribes photographic cadres of modern neo-seasonalism into a digital framework for online communication. Most of the compositions are placed in a blue or ultramarine color plane, which is a metaphor of the Internet cloud. It deftly interweaves the current images of Middle Eastern conflict zones in mass media today - bomb blasts, burning oil fields, groups of masked terrorists - with elements borrowed from the mythical Orientation tradition - flying carpets, lush vegetation, sophisticated lettering. As a result, aesthetised compositions are created, reflecting the merging of two worlds - virtual and real.