Collection

Painter and draughtsman. A graphic arts graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, he also studied architecture at the Kraków University of Technology. He creates painting/ comic-book chronicles of public life in Poland as well as scenes from international art fairs and celebrity conventions. His pieces feature motifs alluding to assorted iconographic sources, from tabloids and stellar films to Polish art museum catalogues. Co-founder of the informal Ładnie group (with Rafał Bujnowski, Marcin Maciejowski, Wilhelm Sasnal, Józef “Kurosawa” Tomczyk and others), he collaborated with Przekrój magazine in the early 2000s, publishing the comic strip Tu żyję i tu jest mi dobrze (I Live and Feel Good Right Here). Winner of the Polityka Passport Award for 2002. He lives and works in Kraków.

The text featured in the painting is a quote from the artist’s friend Józef Tomczyk a.k.a. Kurosawa. A frequent guest in Marcin Maciejowski’s flat, Kurosawa would ponder on the world and politics while Maciejowski worked. Maciejowski asked him to comment on his works as well. Having observed the process of painting a girl holding a plastic cup, Kurosawa saw her as a visitor to an opening night, and proceeded to dictate a commentary on the attendees of such events and people fond of free refreshments.

Marcin Maciejowski sees press photographs as his fundamental creative material. He is interested in the absurdity, stereotypes, and banality of media messages. The criticism concealed in the painting Young People Want Neither to Study nor to Work has become the painter’s commentary on trends across the contemporary world. As the artist explained in an interview, “I have always wished for the capacity to paint in a way that would make my works communicative at first glance rather than overly artistic, or incomprehensible.”