Serious Games
Janek Simon, the winner of the Prize
for Young Polish Art
In his technical constructions, he
combines subversive humor with institutional criticism and political
commentary. Janek Simon's unique work convinced the international jury of
the Prize for Young Polish Art. This October, they awarded the artist the
10,000 Euro prize, which was called to life in 2003 by Deutsche Bank in
cooperation with the Zacheta National Gallery in Warsaw.
Janek
Simon, der Gewinner der Preises für junge polnische Kunst
War
on a prayer rug: for his interactive installation Carpet Invaders
(2002), Janek
Simon projects a 19th-century Caucasian carpet onto the floor. Like in
a computer game, its ornaments kick into motion to attack a given target.
Using a joystick, the viewer can enter the action and shoot down enemy
objects. When he's destroyed them all, he can enter a higher level where
the speed of the attacks is stepped up. In this early work, this year's
winner of the Prize
for Young Polish Art quotes the legendary computer game Space
Invaders, which fascinated millions throughout the late '70s far
beyond its country of origin, Japan. Simon's work merged the minimalist
graphics of the game classic with the archaic pattern of a carpet that
formerly served as a rug for praying to Allah. By transforming it into a
war site, Simon also plays off the tense relationship between the West and
Islam.
Janek
Simon, Carpet Invaders, 2002
Early
on, computer games were an important point of reference for the artist,
who was born in 1971 in Cracow. The video projection Departure //
Take-off (2003) shows a panorama of his native city shook by powerful
explosions. Like rockets, one church tower after another takes off and
disappears into the sky. What's left is the silhouette of Poland's
intellectual capital robbed of its most important landmarks. In Total
Chess (2004), chess figures fly up into the air. The "most peaceful
sport in the world" suddenly turns out to be a war game. In galleries,
Simon let a toy Mercedes drive around or sculptures filled with paint
explode, the splatters of which created dynamic Action Paintings on the
white walls. Works like these cemented his reputation for making "boy's
art." "The stuff I did in the beginning was in fact very much like that,"
said Simon after winning the prize. "Actually, I think 'child's play' is a
very good metaphor for making art. It's creative, a bit destructive,
playful, but it's also a cognitive activity. I think I've moved further
over the past two years, I've grown up and my work has become a lot
darker. It might still be like child’s play, now but I’m playing with more
serious toys."
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Janek Simon, Chleb krakowski/ Cracow Bread,
2006 und
Robot miksujacy Jedynke
z Dwójka/
Robot VJ Mixing
TV Progmam One and Two, 2007,
Installationsansicht,
Zacheta Nationalgalerie, Foto S. Madejski
An
important aspect of his work is its do-it-yourself character. Simon always
builds his installations and objects himself. "I think it's very important
how a work of art is produced—it molds the piece. The work would look very
different if I formulated the concept and left the realization up to
someone else. It would be a different piece entirely." In Views,
the show of the candidates for the Prize for Young Polish Art, Simon
installed insect-like beings that crawled through the exhibition rooms of
the Zacheta
National Gallery in Warsaw—simple loaves of bread that he'd mounted
black metal legs beneath. Like tremendous beetles, they converged towards
a table on which Simon had arranged two old televisions, various antennae,
video recorders, and sound mixers. Robot VJ Mixing One and Two
(2007) mixes the programs of two television stations into a strangely
squint image of TV reality. The overall installation comes across like a
cult site that magically attracts Simon's absurd low-tech creatures. Like Carpet
Invaders, the work refers to the—by now completely obsolete—technology
of the '80s, which for the Poland of his youth seemed as desirable as it
was unattainable. One could also interpret the installation as a critical
commentary on the manipulation of the public through conformist television
images.
Janek
Simon, Chleb krakowski/ Cracow Bread, 2006 und
Robot
miksujacy Jedynke z Dwójka/
Robot
VJ Mixing TV Progmam One and Two, 2007,
Installationsansicht,
Zacheta Nationalgalerie, Foto S. Madejski
Simon's
DIY method also, of course, harbors certain risks. For him, potential
errors are part of the concept. Thus, he dedicated his one-man show Gradient
at the Cracow Galeria
Bunkier Sztuki this year to the theme of failure. On a variety of
different levels—from personal experience to the breakdown of political
systems. "There is something very beautiful in failure. Fitzcarraldo,
for instance, is my favorite movie. There's also a kind of purity in
failed ideas. They remain unrealized, they never have the opportunity to
become corrupted. All successful revolutions have been corrupted. The
revolutions that have been beautiful in some way are those that have
failed, that had a short period of enthusiasm and ecstasy, but not enough
time to become corrupt. Somehow I feel drawn towards failure."
Janek,
Simon, Fire at the Fire Brigade Headquarters,
Centrum
Sztuki Wspólczesnej Zamek Ujazdowki, Warschau, 2006
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