Maurycy Gomulicki at the preview night of Pink Not Dead!, CSW Zamek Ujazdowski, Warzaw 2006, photo: Rafał Nowak (rafalnowak.blox.pl/html)

Graphic artist, photographer, creator of installations and short film forms. Born on March 27, 1969 in Warsaw.

Maurycy Gomulicki studied at the Graphics Department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (1987-1992), where he received a degree in artistic graphic design in the studio of Professor Rafał Strent and painting in the studio of Professor Jerzy Tchórzewski. He continued his education at the Universitat de Barcelona (1992-1993), Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti in Milan (1994) and Centro Multimedia del Centro Nacional de las Artes in Mexico (1997-1998). He works in such artistic domains as photography, objects, installations, videos and animations. He is also involved in graphic design and book illustration. His articles were published in, among others, Machina and Fluid. He lives and works in Warsaw and Mexico.

Maurycy Gomulicki's work relates to the issue the visual manifestations of pop-culture, especially when entering the aesthetically ambivalent area. Therefore he breaches the boundaries between high and low culture. The artist is particularly interested in elements which when transferred into other cultural areas, aquire new meanings.

The series Sentimental Typologies (1999) portrayed a world of erotic phantasmagoria, created by photographing store mannequins. His Vaginettes (2000) on the other hand, were an attempt in controverting a sensual potential in the image of  science and religion.

If pornography is a spectacle that intends to invoke an arrousment for the watched image, these photos hope to be pornographic – Gomulicki describes the series, also entitled Vaginettes.

In years 2000-2002 the artist was a consultant and photographer of an editorial project ABC D.F. – a visual dictionary of Mexico City. The artist also studied the urban tissue in Warsaw – the photo series W-wa (2000-2004) in a romantic way documented everyday pieces of reality that remain unnoticed, like sidewalk patterns or simple fencing ornaments. Together with Jeronimo Hagerman, Gomulicki released a photograph album Funebre (2006) dedicated to funeral fantasies in different parts of the world.

In 2007 at the Photography Festival in Poznań, the artist presented The Best of the Rest, a slideshow musically accompanied by Metallica. Images found on the internet were to give their best in the categories of absurdity, curiosity, protruding the standard norms.

Working in two cities on the Mexican-American border - San Diego and Tijuana – within the InSite project, Gomulicki completed his project Air Bridge (2003-2005). He included aeroclubs from both locations, showing how passion can connect two units across borders.

Maurycy Gomulicki is also involved in graphics and design. In years 2004-2005, together withe architect Jorge Covarrubias and interior designer Salvador Quiroz, he worked on a new image for a Mexican sex-shop network (Erotika Sexshop). It was an attempt to revalue the formally neglected erotic area through extreme aesthetic action. In 2006 at the Centre for Contemporary Art in Warsaw, along with his works (Pink Niagara and Concrete laces) Gomulicki presented a project Pink Not Dead!, with the participation of artists from Poland and Mexico. The guiding theme was the color pink, arousing different connotations in both countries.

In his projects the artist repeatedly refers to the post-People's Republic of Poland visual culture of Polish cities. During a solo exhibition at Kordegarda Gallery in Warsaw (2007), Gomulicki presented his own photographs of the capital's reality confronted with the official image of the city- a black and white photo album of Warsaw from the late 60's by Edmund Kupiecki. At the end of 2007, Gomulicki published a book about Warsaw entitled W-wa consisting of materials from his photographic archive.

"I was interested in the issue of beauty that is totally in contempt, to which nobody pays attention. I don‘t care about what is obvious", Gomulicki said in an interview upon the album's release.

The matter of visual heritage returns in Gomulicki's other realizations. The exhibition Schism at the Centre for Contemporary Art in Warsaw in 2009, dedicated to the art of the 90's shows a special installation relating to the atmosphere and specificities of the previous decade.

In several subsequent projects and exhibitions, the artist developed his interest in fetishism and eroticism, like at an individual exhibition at the Leto gallery (Minimal Fetish, 2009). In a project which took place during the summer (2009) in one of Warsaw's allotments, he organized a performance The Caress of the Foams where a topless model effectuated joyous ablutions in a outdoor bathtub full of foam.

On the occasion of the opening of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCAK) in Kraków, 2011, Gomulicki had a small solo exhibition presenting a series of photographs titled Bibliophilia. In the pictures very young models, dressed only in a bikini pose holding huge books against library shelves in the background. The fetishism devolved to... the books juxtaposed with a young female body.

Recently, Gomulicki increasingly carries out both ephemeral and permanent projects in public space. On Kępa Potocka in Warsaw he installed a cheerful, pink neon - a glass of bubbling soda. The 17-meter neon sign was not meant advertise anything other than the hedonistic pleasure of life. (Lightspurt, 2009)

I do not agree on the primacy of death over life and pleasure over suffering. When looking into culture, it seems that tragedy moves us but happiness puts us to sleep. Even if it is this way, maybe it's worth changing.

In the same year at the House of Creative Work by Wigry Lake near Suwałki, Gomulicki revealed a huge Pearl - a symbol of desire and a symbol of purity. The Pearl is, according to his words, both sensual and pristine, combining sophistication and simplicity, vanity and glory.

 

Obelisk, courtesy of the artist

The pink Obelisk rose at the market place in Poznań (2010) which was an erotic counter-accent to the late medieval pillory. The artist explains:

We have two protagonists: a torture stake and the pink obelisk. Two phallic events of an entirely different purport are confronted. One is terrible, the other delightful. The brutality of a steel pin is contrasted with a mawkish sweetness of a rolled chess figure. Degradation verses efflorescence. The bygone versus modern.

The fanciful, elliptical roof entrance of the Kielce City Hall was painted red by Gomulicki, turning it into the Red Wedge (2010) - a quote from a famous painting by El Lissitzky Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge was transferred into the reality of the city. In a department store Renoma in Wrocław, on the glass connecter between the new and old part of the building, Gomulicki built a Color Cube (2010) distilling from the neoplastic work of Piet Mondrian. This monumental establishment with simple, geometric divisions, filled with basic colors (yellow, red, blue) - precisely in Mondrian's style - is a like transferring the flat paintings of the Dutch abstractionist painter in a three-dimensional reality.

On the occasion of the Polish presidency in the European Union in the second half of 2011, Gomulicki participated within the Fossils and Gardens public space project in Brussels with his performative action Phantom: Romantic Post-Vandalism. He attempts to change an abandoned modernist building into a painting. By walking along the floors, the artist will knock out particular windows until the facade will look like a drawing composed of empty windows resembling computer pixels. The recorded on video performance is meant to function as an independent, integrated work of art.

Author: Karol Sienkiewicz, December 2006; update: June 2011. Translated by: Sylwia Wojda

See more:
Gomulicki Photographs www.flickr.com/photos/vonmurr
Gomulicki Pink Blog http://pinknotdead.blox.pl

Selected individual exhibitions:

1992 - Paintings - thesis presentation, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw
1994 - Paintings and Stones, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw; Suck of the eye, that is to say about strengths , A.R. Friends Gallery, Cinema-Theatre Tęcza, Warsaw
1996 - Glass Spring, Mała Gallery ZPAF-CSW, Warsaw
1997 - Swimming Lessons Mała Gallery ZPAF-CSW, Warsaw; New Adventures of Orphan Mary or Fulfillment of the Dreams, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw
1999 - Sentimental Typologies, Mała Gallery ZPAF-CSW, Warsaw
2002 - Cracks Muca-Roma, Mexico City, Mexico; Hentai - Cascades and Screams, Centro Multimedia, CNA, Mexico City, Mexico
2003 - Energy Stills, SAPS, Mexico City, Mexico
2006 - Pink Not Dead! - Garash Gallery, Mexico City, Mexico / Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw
2007 - Final Fantasy, Garash Gallery, Mexico City; Culture & Concrete, Kordegarda, Warsaw; W-wa, Cinema Iluzjon, Warsaw
2008 - Eco Fever, Museo Experimental El Eco, Mexico City, Mexico
2010 - Minimal Fetish, Leto Gallery, Warsaw / Nova Gallery, Kraków
2011 - Bibliophilia, Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCAK), Kraków; Fern Flower Arsenał, Białystok

Selected group exhibitions:

1990 - Painting Triennale, Osaka, Japan; Third Separate Salon, ASP Museum, Warsaw
1992 - Germinations 7, Centre d'Art Contemporain, Grenoble, France
1994 - Intuition, Construction, Polish Institute, Berlin, Germany
1995 - Grosse Kunst Austellung, NRW, Düsseldorf, Germany
1996 - Memento mori. Not only sepia, University in Brighton, Great Britain; A.R. Friends Gallery, Warsaw
1997 - New Territory of expression, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw
2000 - SCENE 2000, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw; Exit, Chisenhale Gallery, London, Great Britain; Erogena, Museo de Arte Carillo Gil, Mexico City, Mexico
2001 - Landscape, portrait, still life, GAM, Mexico City, Mexico
2002 - Really, the youths are realists, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw; ABC DF - Palabras de la ciudad, Bellas Artes, Mexico City, Mexico; Snowgirl, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw
2003 - Fuera del Campo, Xteresa Arte Actual, Mexico City, Mexico
2004 - Beyond The Red Horizon. New Art from Poland and Russia., Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw; Relax just do it, parallel action, Cieszyn; Marginalia filozoficzne S. I. Witkiewicza, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw
2005 - Videobrasil, SESC, Sao Paulo, Brazil; Detonadores, OPA, Guadalajara, Mexico
2006 - L.H.O.O.Q., Piekary Gallery, Poznań; Contemporary Art for All Children, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw
2007 - Antyphotography, BWA Arsenał Gallery, Poznań; Time Remebered. Mała Gallery 1977-2006, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw
2008 - Lust-Looking-Terror, Art Supermarket, Warsaw; Up Against The Wall Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw; Red Eye Effect Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw; Wolta Wawa, Leto Gallery, Warsaw
2009 - Charms of Power, BWA Asenał, Poznań; Schizma. Polish art in nineties, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw; Home Made, Museo de Arte Moderno de Mexico City, Mexico City;
2010 - The Belly of Atlas, Atlas Sztuki Gallery, Łódź; Things Evoke Feelings, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw; Credo, Zona Contemporary Art Gallery, Łódź; Oh No! Not Sex and Death Again / Iconography of Sensuality, State Art Gallery, Sopot
2011 - Draw and Don’t Waste Time, The Academy Salon, Warsaw; Inspirations, National Museum, Szczecin; Trzy Róże Lubelskie Towarzystwo Zachęty Sztuk Pięknych, Lublin