Hyperlocal: Przemek Pyszczek

In this exhibition Pyszczek strives to further his investigation of abstract landscapes. He bought an old school in a small village in Poland called Drzeniów, a few kilometres away from the German border, and moved there in 2018. He started to observe and document the surroundings, especially manmade objects such as a metal fences and other architectural elements. The location is laden with heavy forested areas, and as such the forest industry is vital for the villages in this area. A majority of the inhabitants get their livelihood from the industry, but human involvement also comes with a backside – smoke and pollution.

On the edge of the nearest city, there is a factory that manufactures OSB, laminate flooring, and other processed wood products using the wood that comes from the surrounding forests. The large reliefs in the show are made out of laminate material from the local forests, which have been cut down and then processed in the factory. The wood gain new life, yet consisting of processed parts. The smaller sculptures are made out of raw wood, stumps and such and they also gain new life via the sculptural process of the artist – and yet present a more natural feeling. Why is it that objects consisting of the same materials, but coming from different steps in the industrial process present different moods with the viewer?

I come to think of Christian Boltanski in his investigation of the reconstruction of the past. Old photographs of smiling teens just before the second world war is presented much later when with certainty their smiles are long gone. With fragments of something that once was, a new object can be produced utilizing the old. This duality is classical, and yet ever blooming. A tree or forests are symbols that we find in all religions and ideologies that stand for something eternal and old. What have these trees seen over the decades? Bonsai is the technique of creating a miniature tree that looks old and yet is planted in a small pot. Here man have intervened with nature, and up-rooted the tree from its natural habitat and planted it somewhere else. Pyszczeks’s works strives to overbridge this duality. In the words of Pyszczek himself – this is what the investigation of the abstract landscape really is.

Valter Sydén, June 2019