Malgorzata Markiewicz – Either-Either

Some of the Markiewicz’s works are nice to touch, delicate and velvety like moss, while other – rough and coarse – seem to fall apart. There is still another kind of compositions, in which the artist juxtaposes soft and hard surfaces, e.g. concrete with fabric; those remind one about a state of confinement, a jam or a trap. Austere geometry of everyday objects, and everyday environment: cage-like flats, apartment buildings and soc-modernist settlemets is somehow tamed and ‘domesticated’ by the artist who tries to soften, and ‘domesticate’ what is unbearably harsh – she is tucking up, warming it. Marking various places/sites with soft signatures is comforting like a soft blanket or a needlework: contours, blur, the whole surrounding is being put into straitjacket, as if to prevent it from doing any harm.

In her projects Markiewicz very often uses fabrics, which are like inscriptions on a body. Clothing serves as an instrument for subjectification, it in a way helps to create one’s identity, like in the Lacanian mirror stage, and to overcome permanent feeling of being torn apart into pieces, or flowing freely in every direction like a shapeless magma. Clothing allows to close the body totally, and to give it strictly defined form/structure.

Marta Lisok

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