He studied painting at University of Fine Arts in Poznań. He is a professor at University of Fine Arts in Poznań and Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. From 1972 to 1990 he ran Galeria Akumulatory 2 in Poznań, in the years 1991-1993 he was the curator of the gallery program and collection of Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw. Initiator of NET international artistic network (1971), involved in “Fluxus” artistic movement. Scholarship holder of British Council (1979, London) and DAAD in Berlin (1984-1985). He lectured at Statens Kunstakademi in Oslo (1993-1997) and Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam (1996-2004). His works have been presented at several individual exhibitions in the country and abroad. He works and lives in Poznań.
Untitled, 1991
photography cycle
Jarosław Kozłowski is one of the most important representatives of conceptual art in Poland and one of the creators of this branch of art. He creates installations, drawings, objects, artistic books, and performances. In the series of untitled photos presented at the exhibition, the artist photographed his head in a balaclava – a motif associated with aggressive criminal groups, terrorists, and fascists. Face coverage is designed to ensure anonymity as well as impunity. The captions in the pictures are a commentary on the situation of oppression and control, in which ideology makes its devastation in people turning them into passive individuals incapable of their own thoughts and feelings. As Kapuściński writes: “In his head burns a sacred pyre that awaits only its sacrificial victims. Every attempt to calm conversation will fail. He doesn’t want a conversation, but a declaration that you agree with him, admit that he is right, join the cause. Otherwise you have no significance in his eyes, you do not exist, for you count only if you are a tool, an instrument, a weapon. There are no people – there is only the cause.”
