Radek Szlaga with Konrad Smoleński “Tribute to Errors and Leftovers”

Fridman Gallery

poster for Radek Szlaga with Konrad Smoleński “Tribute to Errors and Leftovers”

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Two key members of the enfants terribles artist group Penerstwo (translating as “sensitive boorishness”), Konrad Smoleński, representing Poland at the 2013 Venice Biennale, and Radek Szlaga take over the gallery to create a rowdy installation with LA-based noise musician Dean Spunt of No Age. Radek Szlaga’s multiple immersive installation traces his own history as an immigrant from Poland who came to the United States as a child. Steeped in his distinctive dark and baroque sensibility, the work uses kitsch objects, native plants, maps, and family photos from his own past to literalize the confusing experience felt moving between homeland and Promised Land. Slide-projectors scattered throughout the gallery along with scaffolding and aluminum ladders create an overwhelming environment within which Konrad Smoleński intermittently plays his missile guitar and intense noise sculptures. Playing with the contrasts between bright and dark, quiet and loud, static and dynamic, Smoleński’s and Szlaga’s performance confuses and bewilders the senses.

As members of the Penerstwo Group, formed in 2007 by graduates from the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań, Poland, Konrad Smoleński (b. 1977 Warsaw) and Radek Szlaga (b. 1979 Warsaw) produce art that addresses the reality of post-communist life in residential blocks, using an aesthetic vocabulary drawn from graffiti culture, comic strips, punk rock, and hip-hop.

Smoleński has shown at Ludwig Museum (Budapest); Pinchuk Art Center (Kiev); Palais de Tokyo (Paris); and Zachęta — National Gallery of Art (Warsaw). Smoleński represents Poland at the 2013 Venice Biennale. Szlaga has had exhibitions at the National Museum (Stettin); Contemporary Center for Art, Ujazdowski Castle, and Foksal Gallery (Warsaw); and was included in the 14th Vilnius Triennial, (2010). Dean Allen Spunt is the drummer and vocalist of the two-person experimental punk group No Age, formed in Los Angeles in 2005 with guitarist Randy Randall.

Saturday, November 2, 5:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Sunday, November 3, 5:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Tuesday, November 5, 5:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Wednesday, November 6, 5:00 pm - 8:00 pm

Thursday, November 7, 5:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Dean Spunt of No Age performs with Penerstwo, 7-8pm

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from November 02, 2013 to November 07, 2013

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