DOMINIK RITSZEL, Clinch
DOMINIK RITSZEL
Clinch
Exhibition:
15.01 – 3.04.2016
Opening:
14.01.2016, 5 p.m.
The Witches’ Tower Gallery / al. F. Nullo 8 / Słupsk
Documentation
Dominik Ritszel
The narration in Dominic Ritszel films is built my image. The artist’s camera captures and observes, sometimes peeping the existing and arranged situations. Psychological portraits of individuals and groups are often situated in anonymous spaces filled with disturbing silence. Many Ritszel’s works speak about the relationships between sports and discipline. Dominik Ritszel: “The average person who goes to work everyday, is rather reluctant to be exposed to other actions disciplining his or her life. Sport is based on a prepared vision of reality, in which athletes fight with each other on equal terms in a duel, the principles of which are clearly defined. The result is also influenced by the judge whose decisions are final. Wins and defeats leave no ambiguities. We would like the reality that we experience everyday were as understandable and clarified as the one we can watch from the stand or on TV. Sport builds a strong sense of control over one’s emotions, stress, body and image. Hence, sport is often recommended for people suffering from different kinds of depression. Nevertheless, sport is a spectacle in which the expectations of spectators are the most important of all things. The audience is an integral part of the sport, so I decided to juxtapose these two worlds – a sterile reality of contestants versus the audience hungry for experience. (…) I would describe the growing danger in my films as a kind of safe disaster that ultimately does not harm anyone. In my opinion, the tension felt by a hero or heroes is always to a more or less extent a kind of imitation. Many people imagine their own death. Some want with this event to attract attention of others who actually ignore or do not appreciate them, others want to seethemselves in a better light, others else can not resist this type of visions, because of their actual phobia against loss of life. It’s a kind of film drama in which man likes to watch himself”.
Dominik Ritszel was born in 1988 in Rybnik. He studied at the Faculty of Graphic Arts at the Art Institute of the University of Silesia, in Cieszyn. In 2008-2013 he studied printmaking skills and techniques at the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice. In 2009 he was an exchange student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan. He defended his diploma with honours in Literature Interpretation of Prof. Grzegorz Hańderek studio. His works have been shown, among other things, within the framework of international video review festivals as Les Rencontres Internationales (Gaite Lyrique, the Palais de Tokyo, Paris), Ingràvid Festival, Proyector (Spain), Video Art THE 02 Review and In Out Festival (Gdańsk). He has participated in group exhibitions including Persistent inability to concentrate in Prague (2015), What’s Hidden – Current Art from Silesia at the National Gallery of Art in Sopot (2015), Show Off Section in the Month of Photography in Krakow (2013), Curators network in MOCAK in Cracow (2012), in Miejsce Projektow Zachety Waiting for better times (2015) and the collective exhibition presenting the works of young artists from Silesia Milk Teeth at the BWA Contemporary Art Gallery in Katowice. Individually he exhibited in the gallery Kronika in Bytom, Silesian Museum in Katowice, Szara Gallery in Cieszyn and Bank Pekao Project Room. He was elected to the final three Troika Talent 2013 contest in the category of visual arts, and was a finalist of Grey House Foundation Award. He was a “Młoda Polska” magazine scholar in 2014. In April – May 2014 he stayed at the residence at the AIR Laboratory Centre for Contemporary Art Zamek Ujazdowski in Warsaw. He received the award for Video Reverb shown in the 8th edition of the Young Art Biennale – the Fish Eye. The main prize winner at the Young European Artist Trieste Contemporanea Award 2015.