TABLE

group exhibition, Lathing Machines Factory in Wrocław

Survival Art Review “WORKROOM”
2016
Lathing Machines Factory in Wrocław,

instalation made by Aga Jarząb and Stanisław Jarząb
curator: Maciek Bączyk

Stanisław Jarząb (born in 1937) came to Wrocław in 1961 and two years later he started working at the PILMET Agriculture Machinery Factory. The drawing table was his basic tool, both at the factory and at home. It stood in the living room of his four-room apartment, with tracing paper, graph paper, templates, drawing ink and technical pens always nearby. The draughtsman’s studio attracted his youngest daughter, Aga Jarząb (1977), like a magnet and most probably influenced her later interests in drawing. The daughter’s drawing from the start had no practical use, though later thet took on a synthetic form, similar to her father’s drawings.
Despite her academic training, she is now closer to descriptive geometry and technical drawing, although what she does now serves no other purposes but its own representation. Meanwhile, her father is unable to draw lines that would be of no subsequent use. His contact with art comes down to designing and implementing devices that his daughter uses in her artistic activities. Aga’s requests are treated by Stanisław as tasks, problems to be solved. At the same time, they quickly becomes a torment for him, especially when technical problems appear The purpose, context and sense of the whole project is not important to him; what matters is promptness, material savings and efficiency of the device.
In this year’s SURVIVAL, Stanisław and Aga meet at one table – a drafting table found in the Measurement Chamber of the Lathing Machinet Factory in Wrocław. At his daughter request, the father modified it so that it automatically does nonsensical and fruitless work. This violation of his own professional principles takes place in a factory hall that has been put out of service. Aga Jarząb’s drawing incorporates her father’s work into the mechanisms of art and, at the same time, it is a personal expression of respect for his constant willingness to help. The family project allows them to reexamine their relationship. This time, exceptionally, it takes place on common ground of a factory / gallery.

 

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