ART-PRESENTATION: Paulina Olowska-Belavia
Within Paulina Olowska’s practice, industry, leisure, and socialist symbolism occupy the same visual and cultural space. Her realist paintings, drawings, and collages borrow imagery from Eastern European and American popular culture creating a cross cultural reference that is evident throughout her practice, whilst engaging with the concepts of consumerism, feminism, and design.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Metro Pictures
The outward appearance of Olowska’s female subjects is equally as important as the historical memories interwoven seamlessly throughout her collages and paintings. Olowska’s treatment of her subject’s materialization acts as a direct display of the spirit of the individual, which is likely to be contrasted against a uniformed surrounding reminiscent of life experienced behind the iron curtain. “Belavia” an exhibition by Paulina Olowska features a new documentary film and related paintings. Since 2016, Olowska has made frequent trips to Belarus to photograph and record its capital Minsk. For the artist, Minsk feels “culturally frozen in time” and recalls memories of her childhood growing up in communist Poland. The works in the exhibition explore the architecture, style, and traditions of a country that, to Olowska, seems like a hidden socialist utopia. A majority of the film, titled “Univermag”, was shot at the Minsk location of Glávnyj Universányj Magazín (GUM), a department store found throughout cities of the former Soviet Union. Initially inspired by Émile Zola’s novel “The Ladies’ Paradise”, which recounts the rise of the modern department store in late 19th Century Paris, Olowska secretly filmed both customers and saleswomen at GUM. Unlike Zola’s fictional store, which is a symbol of capitalism and the rise of the modern city, GUM is like a Cold War time capsule; only products made in Belarus are available, with no trace of otherwise globally present Western brands. Further exploring the themes of consumerism and feminism as they exist outside the workings of capitalism, Olowska’s new paintings imagine modern Belarusian women juxtaposed against the cityscapes of Minsk. Some of the women appear to anticipate their glamorous futures, while others seem to hold on to the past. In one work, a woman in a sleeveless red and white dress stares directly ahead at the viewer. In stark contrast to the austere architecture of the U Troitskogo apartment complex behind her, the woman’s skin and clothes are bathed in vibrant sunlight. In another, a woman and child dressed in a modern Belarusian style stand at the edge of a road; behind them is a high-rise housing complex on Minsk’s famous Independence Avenue. They stare off into the distance, far away from the silvery lunar-like landscape they have emerged from.
Info: Metro Pictures, 519 West 24th Street, New York, Duration:15/11-21/12/18, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.metropictures.com
