Artists

Agata Madejska Born in 1979 in Warschau, Poland | Lives and works in Essen

Portrait

Agata Madejska, 2011

Agata Madejska, 2011
Foto: Peter Otto

Agata Madejskafinds her picture subject matter in urban space. She isolates architectonic structures in her photographic series—for example, monuments and playground objects like slides and swings—from their surrounding urban settings. Her practice is very precise and unhurried, a reflection of her perfection in her search for images and their treatment.

The artist approaches her subjects almost scientifically. She does research, makes notes and sketches and searches long until she has found her picture motifs. A decidedly artistic understanding of the medium of photography that borders on being conservative-like is recognizable in her works. All photographs are created analog, without artificial light. Madejska photographedIdeogram(2007–2009)—a series of eight photographs—under a grey-white overcast sky. The series shows high-rise buildings that appear isolated from their city setting by a concentration on the upper parts of the buildings. All distracting elements are omitted. These portraits of buildings are at once cool and delicate. The colors in the photographs are almost monochrome. A muting of color can be found in almost all her works, also in the latest series,The Order of Solids, begun in 2010. Once again, Madejska isolates her subject matter from its context. The abstract presentation of the pictures, dominated by objects found in public spaces, can to a degree only first be deciphered by the narrow picture margin in which houses and trees can be seen. Madejska is interested in their function as a surface on which to project a cultural context and can be understood in terms of an overpowering and abstracting confrontation with history and its representation. Moreover,The Order of Solidselucidates Madejska’s interest and her devotion to sculpture, to three-dimensionality, and her understanding of photography as a starting point but not the end point of her artist creativity.

Solo exhibitions (selection)

2010 WIDMER&THEODORIDIS contemporary, ZĂĽrich
2009 Galerie AllerArt, Bludenz
2006 Projektraum Mikro, DĂĽsseldorf

Group exhibitions (selection)

2012 Förderpreis des Landes NRW für junge Künstler, Abtei Kornelimünster, Aachen
Der Mensch und seine Objekte, Museum Folkwang, Essen
2011 reGeneration2, Aperture Gallery, New York
2010 Bloomberg New Contemporaries, ICA, London
Menos tiempo que lugar, Palacio National de las Artes, Buenos Aires
2009 Bienal de Cuenca, Museo de Arte Moderno, Ecuador
2008 Gute Aussichten 2007/2008, Deichtorhallen, Haus der Fotografie, Hamburg

Bibliography (selection)

2012 „Der Mensch und seine Objekte“, Museum Folkwang, Essen.
2011 “Förderpreis des Landes NRW für junge Künstler”, MFKJKS, Düsseldorf.
2010 William A. Ewing u.a., “reGeneration 2 – Tomorrow's Photographers Today”, London.
”Picking up/Bouncing back”, Royal College of Art, London.
”Menos tiempo que lugar”, Goethe Institut, Brazil.
2009 ”daadada”, DAAD, London.