Michał Smandek ‘Fatigue failure of materials’ — within the cycle ‘Inessentials’
Michał Smandek (born 1981) — completed his art education studies in the faculty of art and music at the University of Silesia. He has taken part in the following exhibitions — Strach przed ciemnością in Centrum Kultury Katowice im. K. Bochenek, 2011, Romantyczna Udręka in BWA Design/Czarny Neseser Gallery in Wrocław, 2011, Discovery in Kronika Centre for Contemporary Art in Bytom, 2010, Alfabet polski_1 in BWA Gallery in Tarnów, 2009, Survival 7 — Young Art in Extreme Conditions Review in Wrocław, 2009, among others.
‘Inessentials’ — book summary of exhibition cycles The project ‘Inessentials’, which is planned for the whole year, involving artists, designers and the local community in a series of...
Michał Smandek's exhibition is yet another event organized within Inessentials, a year-long project which provides artists, designers and the local community with the opportunity to meet during film screenings, discussion panels, performances and artistic actions held in the city. The artists engaged in the project aim to instill in people the need to shape their nearest environment, which could in turn lead to our thinking of space as a form that models most of our behavior. Their artistic actions and realizations are intended to encourage people to re-design the unwelcoming urban space, so that it becomes a place conducive to their becoming domiciled, as well as to building and maintaining relationships with others.
In his most recent works, Michał Smandek has used a variety of materials, including smoke, ash, lead, salt, sand and adhesive. These materials constitute a recording of his private performances, struggles with matter, and his very consistent artistic actions in post-industrial areas, which he has carried out within his project entitled Prace naprawcze (Repair Work). Smandek colonizes space and matter, conducting subtle experiments that aim to test their physical properties to the limit. He keeps repeating that unless he has done something in a certain place, he cannot claim that it is his property. His approach to reality involves both the passion befitting a scientist who researches the laws of physics, and admirable tenderness, which can be observed during the short time when he uses his realizations to envelop this reality with care.
