By Josh Blanc
WAR REPORTS Opening reception FRIDAY October 4, 6 to 9pm With music by IOSISdrone
Exhibition runs through November 10th with a Closing Celebration: Friday November 8th, 6-9pm
@NE SCULPTURE I Gallery Factory, Casket Arts Factory, 1720 Madison Street NE, MPLS.
Piotr Szhalski is back with a new body of work from his internationally acclaimed Labor Camp series. His work during the pandemic . . Szyhalski’s drawing offers such a range of design, it is breathtaking. Each poster had a different hand drawn font. Szyhalski showcase realism, patterning, propaganda art, graphic design, pop art, anatomical drawings, landscapes, many types of animals. It was an incredible display of skills and deep psychological touch points, channeling our society’s fears, anger, contradictions, and symbols. The use of common symbols of everyday objects is masterful. His new work is diving deeper into the war machine thinking, drones, proganda and symbolism of authoritarian thinking. It is a show not to be missed.
Piotr Szyhalski is a Polish-born and trained multimedia artist working in the United States since 1990. The Minneapolis-based artist’s wide-ranging practice encompasses an array of media and genres, including poster designs, drawings, mail art, photographs, painted murals, prints, web-based digital art, sound art, installation, and performance. His multilayered works explore communication/exchange, extreme historical phenomena, and the relationships between the individual, society, history, and time. In 1998 he established Labor Camp, an ongoing art project guided by the motto “We Are Working All The Time!”
Szyhalski’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and is in the collections of KADIST (Paris/San Francisco), Minneapolis Institute of Art, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Walker Art Center, Weisman Art Museum, and others. Recent monographs include COVID-19: Labor Camp Report (2021, Frank) and Piotr Szyhalski: We Are Working All the Time (2020, Weisman Art Museum), which accompanies his 2022 survey exhibition.