Visual artist, born in 1977. Author of interactive installations, videos, objects.

Simon studied sociology and psychology at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow. His artistic activity began around 2001. As VJ Jansi he cooperated with Commbo group, making visualisations for music in clubs and with the 36,6 Foundation. He is author of interactive installations, videos, objects. Simon takes inspiration from computer games, Internet and the archive (in its multiple meanings). He lives and works in Cracow.

His artistic début took place in 2002 during the Novart.pl Festival in Cracow. There he presented "Carpet Invaders" - a simple computer game whose board was an image of a carpet projected on he floor. Within the limits marked by the edging in the style of Eastern carpets, a space ship navigated by the viewer shoots at elements of the oriental ornament. The next year, Simon made another interactive installation entitled "Balwan" ("Snowman", 2003). The power of the voice of a person in the projection room influences the projection speed of a film in which children are building a snowman. A viewer becomes a supervisor - the louder he/she utters orders, the faster the work goes.

Some characteristic features of Simon's art can be observed in these early works. The main topic here is the problem of catastrophe, an approaching end of civilisation, which could be foreshadowed by computer games. The artist does not point to the source of this threat. On the one hand, he makes objects which suggest an approaching cataclysm, on the other, he gathers hints and constructs tools with the help of which a human being can free himself/herself from civilisation and will survive in the face of the catastrophe. This attitude is based on the thought of anarchists who propagated the idea of individual rebellion against the system and state. This rebellion finds its expression in Simon's individual creativity, and consequently, in his aspiring for self sufficiency. Lukasz Ronduda described it as an "anarchic and pragmatic attitude in the face of contemporary knowledge of reality based on overproduction."

In his film "Odlot" ("Departure/Take Off") from 2003 the church towers of Cracow become rockets which go off into space one after another, leaving the Cracow skyline totally flat. It is already in this amusing animation (the Polish title can also be read as referring to the state of drug intoxication) that one finds both the vision of catastrophe and of escape. In the work "Kanal" ("Canal", 2004) Simon placed a sound system under a sewer drain which, from time to time, emitted the voice of Charlie Chaplin from "The Great Dictator" imitating Adolf Hitler. Placed on the old market square in Bytom, the work alluded to the fears that as the consequence of Polish access to the European Union, the Germans would come to the Silesia district and demand the restoration of their former property.

However, the catastrophe is marked explicitly by slight shakes of reality, for example a shaking glass of water ("Lekkie trzesienie ziemi" / "Slight Earthquake", 2004) or paintings swaying on the wall, as if the building was moving just like a ship on the waves ("Sztorm" / "Storm"). A vision of catastrophe was also at work in "Pozar w kwaterze glownej strazy Pozarnej" / "Fire At Fire Department Headquarters" (2005) - an architectonic model of an existing building with a smoke generator placed inside. Fire spreads in the headquarters of an institution responsible for extinguishing fires - a vision of irreversible disaster. In the work "Smrod" / "Smell" in turn, presented in the exhibition Bad News at Kronika Gallery, Bytom, in 2006, the artist filled one of the exhibition rooms with the smell of burning, which could suggest a recent explosion.

The other side of Simon's artistic practice referring to catastrophic visions are numerous tools constructed by the artist on the basis of the information and instructions found on the Internet. He proves that many objects produced by corporations can be handmade, for example "Zegarek elektroniczny domowej produkcji" ("Home Made Digital Watch", 2005). Simon specialises particularly in tools which are supposed to help to survive in extreme conditions, for example, "Pulapki na wiewiorki" ("Squirrel Traps", 2005) set accordingly with an instruction for the American Army. In 2005 in Wolfsburg, Simon presented a scheme "Jadalne rosliny i zwierzeta Dolnej Saksonii" ("Edible Plants and Animals of Lower Saxony") and held a lecture on this topic.

Sometimes however, in Simon's work one finds longing for well established rules; especially where they had been replaced by chaos and total anarchy. In his computer game "Szachy totalne" ("Total Chess", 2004) sophisticated chess rules have replaced the primitive rules of the arcade game. Particular movements of the opponent cease to work, his pawns are eliminated with the use of a series of impressive explosions.

In his other realisations, Simon applies the formula of aesthetic recycling, adopted from collectors of all sorts of objects and rubbish. The exhibition in Zacheta Gallery in Warsaw in 2005 entitled Krakowiacy lubia czystosc (Cracovians Like It Clean) was in its entirety constructed of cans, plastic bottles, etc. Set together, they reminded of futuristic buildings or the Cracow Christmas Crèche. There was also a sentimental touch to this exhibition - it alluded to the period of early capitalism in Poland, and to the fascination with the cheap glare of packages of the products from the West. This exhibition featured also "Triumf polskiego przemyslu samochodowego" ("The Triumph of Polish Car Industry", 2003) - images from "Turbo" chewing gum, depicting Western cars, arranged in the shape of a Polonez produced by the Zeran Car Factory.

Janek Simon is also interested in a self reflexive side of artistic production - in the notions of artist, art and institutional relations. For the exhibition entitled Piekno czyli efekty malarskie / Beauty or the Painterly Effects he created a video installation "Malarz-Samobojca" ("Painter-Suicider", 2004). In a small cube imitating an exhibition room, the artist presented a detonation of a puppet filled with paint. The effect reminded a work of action painting. In the same year he took part in a project for Casino Luxembourg and as every participating artist was obliged to make one work. His project however was a deceitful one - the work was a dummy of a potential retrospective exhibition in which he gathered - as Duchamp did some time before in his cases - suitably diminished projects of his former realisations ("Retrospektywa" / "Retrospective", 2004). In this way, Simon's anarchic creationism emerged in the face of the strict rules imposed by an institution on artists.

In the project "Rok Polski na Madagaskarze" ("Polish Year on Madagascar") Simon took up the issues of cultural colonialism. In Spring 2006 he went to Madagascar in order to organise in Antananarivo a Polish exhibition. In reality, it consisted of several works by foreign artists (such as Guma Guar) which nevertheless touched upon problems present in Poland today - social stratification and war in Iraq. Most of all however, the project was a journey to a country which in the 1930s was perceived by many Polish people as a possible realisation of the colonial aspirations of the Second Republic of Poland. The cultural expansion organised by Simon provided an ironic commentary to the contemporary aspirations of Polish society to place itself within the world elite.

Author: Karol Sienkiewicz, November 2006

Selected Individual Exhibitions:

• 2003
  - "Odlot" / "Departure" / TAke Off - Potocka Gallery, Cracow;
  - "Gry i zabawy" / "Games and Plays" - Arsenal Gallery, Bialystok.
  
  
• 2005
  - "Krakowiacy lubią czystość" / "Cracovians Likt It Clean" - Zacheta Gallery, Warsaw.
  
  
• 2006
  - "Pożar kwatery głównej strazy pożarnej" / Fire at Fire Department Headquarters - within the exhibition project At the Very Centre of Attention, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw;
  - "Polish Year in Madagascar" - Atlas Gallery, Lodz.

Selected Group Exhibitions:

• 2002
  - "Novart.pl" - Cracow.
  
  
• 2003
  - X Miedzynarodowe Biennale Sztuki Mediów "WRO" / 10th International Media Art Biennial - Wroclaw;
  "Ögonblickets Anatomii" / "Anatomy of Moments" - Marienfred, Sweden.
  
  
• 2004
  - "Audio Video Commbo - Krakow na Pradze" / "Audio Video Commbo - Cracow in Praga" - Klima Bochenska Gallery, Warsaw;
  - "Game Scenes" - Yerba Buena Centre for the Arts, San Francisco;
  - "Palimpsest Museum" - Lodz Art Biennial, Historical Museum of the City of Lodz;
  - "Piękno czyli efekty malarskie" / "Beauty or Painterly Effects" - BWA Bielska Gallery, Bielsko-Biala; BWA Awangarda, Wroclaw; BWA, Zielona Gora (2005);
  - "Bez tytulu". IV Triennale Mlodych / "Untitled". 4th Youth Triennial - Centre for Polish Sculpture, Oronsko;
  - "Art Jeune – Concernés" - Lille, France;
  - "RE: Location Academy/Shake Society" - Casino Luxembourg, Luxembourg.
  
  
• 2005
  - "Kowalska. Markiewicz. Simon" - Potocka Gallery, Cracow;
  - "Boys" - Bunkier Sztuki, Cracow;
  - Prague Biennale 2 - Prague, Czech Republic;
  - "Un/Real?" - Wyspa Art Institute, Gdansk;
  - "Futuryzm miast przemyslowych. Sto lat Wolfsburga/Nowej Huty" / "The Futurism of Industrial Cities - 100 Years of Wolfsburg/Nowa Huta" - Kunstverein, Wolfsburg, Germany; Nowa Huta, Cracow, 2006.
  
  
• 2006
  - "Bunkier Sztuki Collection" - Bunkier Sztuki, Cracow;
  - "Bad News" - Kronika Gallery, Bytom;
  - "Bridge:ing. Symbols of Art." - Bunkier Sztuki, Cracow;
  - Bucharest Biennale 2 - Bucharest, Romania.

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