Marta Kubiak’s screen prints, made over the last three years, presented at the exhibition of the Laureate of the Grand Prix of Young Polish Print – Krakow 2012, provide a powerful confirmation of the intuition of the Jury, who in the previous edition of the competition for young Polish printmakers granted the Wrocław-based artist the highest prize. Undoubtedly, Marta Kubiak proves she has developed the creative direction introduced by 

the awarded work. I will risk a statement that Monster Zero is a print that could be treated as the point zero, the starting point for her artistic investigations undertaken over the period 2013–2015. Monster Zero was characterised by a bold employment of pop culture motifs, through which Kubiak discussed contemporary conflict-stricken world, as well as manifested a skilful use of possibilities offered by large scale – a visual effect which, fortunately, the artist did not embrace in all of her later pieces. Therefore, apart from large-scale works, the exhibition features also prints made in the classic format – 70×100 cm. Marta Kubiak shows this way she is no slave to the present fashion for gigantomachy, but an able tactician who adjusts the size of her works to the messages addressed to her viewers. Notably, Kubiak decided to introduce colours, which she employed in her work with finesse and feeling. What, then, remains from the aesthetics and ideas expressed in the work awarded three years ago? Above all, it is the sensitivity to the incessant presence of conflict in everyday life of contemporary citizens. In the course of recent years, various conflicts have in all kinds of forms radically approached the previously peaceful Europe. Threats coming from the East, waves of immigrants coming from the South, and terrorist activity hitting European metropolitan centres make Europeans feel increasingly threatened. This anxiety is reflected in Kubiak’s work which depicts the sense of threat through pop cultural metaphors: Godzilla-like monsters, splashes of colour that resemble comic-like splashes and scraps of blood flying around on cinema screens in films about war and conflict, finally, short words and phrases presented without any context, yet announcing threat and encouraging a fight for life and death. Comic book aesthetics and video game style, especially of the popular first person shooters, is invested in these prints with a shocking power. The artist seems to be saying that the world around us is not a game and that media messages produce only an illusion of safety of the viewers by distancing them spatially. 

The conflict is here and now, just like the fight, where one phrase, present in the print Trzy głowy, jeden ogon [Three Heads, One Tail], recurs like a mantra: “Fight – die – fight – die”. This is not a safe form of PlayStation game that raises the level of adrenaline in thrill-thirsty teenagers. This is a conflict where very soon each one of us might be forced perhaps to take their own position. 

The artist prepares us for this with the means provided by the medium of graphics. Yet, she does not familiarise us with the incoming conflict, but makes us aware that the enemy might already be at the gates…

 

Marta Anna Raczek-Karcz

President of International Print Triennial Society 

in Krakow