Agnes Janich


Agnes Janich, née: Agnieszka Jeziorska, - a visual artist who works with photography and installation art. Within her practice she deals with the history of memory, love and intimacy. She has presented her work in, among others: 9th Sharjah Biennial in the United Arab Emirates, Galapagos Art Space in New York, Maison Europeene de la Photographie in Paris, Central European House of Photography in Bratislava, Bergen Museum of Art, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Kunsthalle Exnergasse in Vienna and the Auschwitz Jewish Center in Oświęcim affiliated with the Museum of Jewish Heritage, New York. She took part in Art Edition Fair in Seoul Arts Center, Hangaram Art Museum. She is based in Geneva, Switzerland.

Early life and education

Janich was born in Łódź, Poland, though soon after her birth her family moved to Singapore and the Republic of South Africa. She began her education in the Republic of South Africa. Having been raised in an multinational and multicultural environment has influenced her and had impact on her further career and choices. Also, the fact that she was raised in a traditional family of Polish and likely assimilated Jewish descent proved to be of great importance for her further artistic career and identity, i.e., at an early stage of her career she decided to change her name from Polish 'Agnieszka' to English 'Agnes' and assumed the surname 'Janich' after her Jewish great grandma. This choice demonstrates an important role of the family history in her life. She became a member of liberal Jewish communities in New York and in Poland.
Janich's formal education in art history started in the 1st Private High School in Bednarska Street, Warsaw, Poland. She continued her studies at the University of Warsaw, got a Degree with Honors in Fine Art Photography and Commercial Photography from the European Academy of Photography in Warsaw, studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, and finally concluded her education holding a BFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts in New York, a college that shaped artists such as Keith Haring.

Career

Janich's works reveal her two major interests: one is Holocaust-based themes. Another are: love, sex and emotional entanglement, often seen from a perspective of social norms or cultural restrictions. Based upon that distinction, Janich's career can be divided into two periods: first dating from her early works until 2012, and the second from 2013 to present.
During the first phase Janich has been exploring the history of Holocaust via her own family roots and relating it to the general notion of purity and innocence as opposed to terror, violence and destruction. What is distinctive in her approach is that almost all narrations she presents come either from a herstorical point of view, showing feminist approach and women's perspective, or are communicated by the most defenseless of protagonists, i.e. children.
In the second phase the major interests distinguishable in Janich's art include searching through emotions, intimacy and sexual relations in search of what can be called 'the root of tension' between two individuals tangled in a relationship, often of a social or cultural origin. In this case as well Janich often applies feminist approach.

Selected works

''Man to Man (2009)''

It is an multi-video installation in form of a labyrinth leading the viewer through complete darkness to the wall projections of fangs and claws accompanied by the sound of barking dogs. It constitutes the first part of the War Trilogy made by Janich over a period of three years: Man to Man, Bits and Pieces, and Cleanliness is Goodliness, addressing the subject of preserving memory and violence. The work was first presented in 2009 during the ninth Sharjah Biennial in the United Arab Emirates, where it was well received and commented as a disturbing project "where viewers were led through a maze of darkened passages to rooms that dead-ended with videos of relentlessly barking dogs restrained in prison-like cages".
Its interpretation is unambiguous: "This extremely claustrophobic work is a comment about prisons and enslavement". Its main theme is brutal violence and an attempt at dehumanization done to individuals. The critics as well as the viewers have responded to that " distinct suggestion of dirty wet fur, ruddy dog breath, and high-pitched fear" with anxiety, which was fully intentional, as the piece was inspired by the Auschwitz doghouse. This perspective provides this work not only with its historical references, but may also suggest drawing attention to the suffering of dogs in shelters as well as to individual pain.
After its premiere the piece was presented, among others, in: Galerie Charim, Vienna, Austria, Zachęta Narodowa Galeria Sztuki, Warsaw, Poland and in Galerie Walter Keller, Zürich, Switzerland.

''I Hate My Body When You're Gone'' (2009)

It is a series of videos and photographs of the artist herself, exploring the theme of gender differences and identity exploration seen through violence and perverse pleasure. The artist's own interpretation of the reason to picture such violence and autoagression is that " it might somehow be an aftermath of the works on the concentration camps which were far more political and also dealing with violence. So it's a getting rid of the violence and coming back to life".
However, as seen in other Janich's works, the reference to WWII appears obvious here as well, as she compares concentration camp violence to relationship violence. Her piece is a controversy, as are her opinions and commentaries:
One of the critics commented the interrelation between acts of violence and innocence of Janich's naked body in the following way: "Her body becomes an absolute, a sacrifice, an offering. An all-encompassing declaration of: I will do everything, give everything, just to get closeness in return."
This piece was exhibited in MCCA Elektrownia, Radom, Poland, 2012.

''Bits and Pieces (2010)''

It is an installation in public place, which had its premiere in Łódź – the artist's birthplace in Poland. She decided to decorate the walls of three buildings – hospital at no. 35 Łagiewnicka street and two houses at no. 14 Franciszkańska street and no. 77 Drewnowska street – with doll dresses, sleeping jumpers and children's earmuffs. The aim of the project was to bring back and preserve the memory about the youngest residents of the Łódź Ghetto " that could neither move past its prison walls nor survive the war."
This work's strength lies in its simplicity:
The installation was also commented: "Bits and Pieces forces us to imagine the quotidian reality of the children that once were or might have been — parts that stand in for an absent whole."

''That You Have Someone (2012)''

It is a series of photographs depicting the artist herself involved in an erotic, intimate relation with a lover. They are archival inkjet prints on cotton rag paper, 16x24in. each. Each photograph has a description made by the artist in red ink. These are the fragments of diaries and love confessions made by the Holocaust Survivors during the WWII. In order to retrieve them, Janich has searched through the archives of Auschwitz, Mauthausen-Gusen, Majdanek, Bergen Belsen and Ravensbrück, read memoirs and talked to the Survivors in person. This piece depicts the body that " becomes the subject. Nonetheless, it is not the body of the Shoah, but a body which desires, lusts, and loves. A body which had been situated outside of the frame of the historical narrative".
The piece has been exhibited among others in: Galerie Walter Keller, Zürich, Switzerland, 2013, BWA Contemporary Art Gallery, Zielona Gora, Poland, 2012 and in MCCA Elektrownia, Radom, Poland, 2012,.

''I Don't See the Problem (2011–2015)''

It is a series of 30 archival inkjet prints on cotton rag paper, 40x60cm / 16x20in each. They refer to social norms and clichés regulating lives of a couple. In this piece the author's idea was to describe variety of emotions and mutual expectations of the partners. As in previous works Janich provided a kind of commentary to the captured scenes in form of short, hand-written sentences in red ink.

''Female Favors (2015)''

It is a series of 17 archival inkjet prints on cotton rag paper, 40x60cm / 16x20in each. This piece depicts various forms of rivalry between two women "one focused on self-fulfilment and the other on serving others."

List of other works

Monography:
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