Pieces of Black Man is an exhibition in which the artist for the first time decides to go beyond the classically understood collage technique. Pieces of cut photos that were the substance used for previous Konrad Maciejewicz works have been replaced here by various everyday use materials and objects which create one installation along with the gallery space and its character. But it is not a complete site-specific work, even though Monopol, as a private gallery, and its interior which used to serve as a store, are a very crucial context for the idea of the exhibition.

The dialogue with the commercial aesthetics and its visual clichés results from the artist’s direct experience. It is the outcome of talks and opinions about his previous output, and questions about the issue of remuneration for hard, precise, and laborious work, namely a collage made of several thousand tiny pieces of paper. What matters in particular here is the visual ambivalence of his projects – initially, they attract attention with their rich, decorative form, but as soon as the audience familiarises itself with their content, they became too dark and drastic. This time the artist focuses on strengthening the pull-push effect by utilizing for his gloomy narrations the language and tools used in advertising, e.g. stock photos. He also treats the exhibition space like a merchandiser building the store interior, with huge model figures in light-boxes prevailing over the remaining interior design elements.

Drawings and objects presented during the Pieces of Black Man exhibition are in a way reverse to that reality, suggesting personal narration incorporated into the anonymous, office-like space of the gallery.

Konrad Maciejewicz was born in 1980 in Lubartów. He graduated from the Faculty of Arts in Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin in 2004. He lives and works in Warsaw.