BEAUTIFICATION

The artists – Małgorzata ET BER Warlikowska, Aleksandra Janik, Magdalena Hlawacz, and the organisers – Galeria M, operating under the auspices of the Association of Polish Artists and Designers, and Galeria Pierwsze Piętro in Opole, cordially invite you to the exhibition called BEAUTIFICATION.

The exhibition will be presented in two venues:

in Galeria M Odwach in Wrocław
Świdnicka 38a
from 1 -13 April 2016
opening on 1 April at 7 pm

and

in Galeria Pierwsze Piętro in Opole
Krakowska 1
from 15 April – 4 May 2016
opening on 15 April at 5 pm

The exhibition is a part of a project combining art and science BEAUTIFICATION that is realised in cooperation with Michał Wanke from the Sociology Institute of the University of Opole and his team. A bilingual publication will sum up those efforts.

Wystawa jest częścią artystyczno-naukowego projektu pt. BEAUTIFICATION realizowanego we współpracy z Michałem Wanke z Instytutu Socjologii Uniwersytetu Opolskiego i jego zespołem. Podsumowaniem będzie dwujęzyczna publikacja.

Nowadays in our consuming societies we can see that there is a mechanism of mass production and mass consumption of beauty, meaning that we consider beautiful only whatever is potentially consumed and reproduced by the beauty idols. There has been this false need created by the beauty industry that forces the camera even deeper in the way that we exist as social entities. This need is constantly fuelled by the structure of the mass media which promotes a positive evaluation of beautification, in image and in likeness of the celebrities, which basically is a process of  mimicking the celebrities. Now beauty exists only within the norms of beauty and the individuals are entrapped in a vicious cycle of becoming beautiful only through their very alienation, so the more beautiful someone is considered to be, the more she or he embrace this mechanism of alienation which is called beautification. The question that comes to mind while looking at these pictures is, how can we find a way of de-beautification, because what we really need is to find a way of being beautiful without contradicting the essence of beauty, which is the each person’s uniqueness. – Sebastian Kizito, Athens