Collection

This is the stereotypical Kraków flat, suffused with the stuffy air of prudery, crammed with bulky furniture and countless knickknacks. Among them is a work from Phototheatre, one of Kalicka’s first photographic series, on a chest of drawers. A grotesque pair of “old folks” sip coffee in the bourgeois parlour. This is one of the eclectic scenes staged by Kalicka, in which the artist plays out the timeless human tendency toward folklore and demonization of unfamiliar or misunderstood phenomena. The work is part of the series of photographs inspired by New Athens by the priest Benedykt Chmielowski, intended as the first Polish general encyclopaedia but soon regarded as a manifestation of the Polish obscurantism of the Saxon era. Kalicka points out that today’s media topics and the methods of presenting them often parallel Chmielowski’s entries, which even upon publication of New Athens (1745) were regarded as obsolete compared to the Enlightenment thought then current elsewhere in Europe. But Kalicka’s aim is not to ridicule or scorn Chmielowski. She is intrigued by how his depictions, stereotypes and beliefs about the world linger in the contemporary mentality, media message, and political narrative.

Photographer, filmmaker, collage artist. Graduate of the Faculty of Photography at the Łódź Film School. Kalicka often photographs improvised or staged situations, much like theatrical productions. She creates photographic tableaux vivants, presentations of canonical motifs from art history brought to life, in which the artist herself poses along with her friends. She alludes to literary and anthropological texts in her works, which also include numerous symbols, self-quotations, and mythological, religious and pop-culture references. She eagerly mixes orders and registers, incorporating kitsch and the aesthetics of intentional error. She uses stylized form to raise contemporary themes associated with identity and its stereotypical perception. She lives and works in Kraków.