PARTICIPATING ARTISTS:
Inma Barrero
Zuzanna Bartoszek
Maryna Brodovska
Monika Chlebek
Judith Eisler
Anna Orłowska
Hania Rani
Irinka Talakhadze
Noelia Towers
Aleksandra Waliszewska
Karolina Żądło
Curated by Anna Grunwald
“...difficult emotions, including despair, melancholy, or depression (...) constitute a type of litmus paper, a radar that indicates an array of things essential to our situation in the world, to the organization of this world and the order that rules within. And perhaps also, though this is a strictly philosophical theory, something about the nature of existence itself, or in any case, about the human condition.” - Tomasz Stawiszyński, On the importance of sadness, 2020
Loss is an inevitable and essential component of life. It’s a particularly difficult and complex aspect of life to confront and to navigate. Seemingly hopeless, the stages of despair allow for deep reflection and introspection — moments that may not be pleasant or pleasurable but are necessary and beneficial. In this way, experiencing it is often pivotal to individual and communal growth and development. By allowing ourselves to be vulnerable and authentic, we're carving out space for grief and recognizing, dealing with, and accepting new life realities. Such an outlook is often essential to establishing and nurturing our most important beliefs and convictions and developing our personality.
As humanity grows further apart from its origins on the wings of quickly evolving technology, the impact and weight of loss stay the same, if not increase. The group exhibition grapples with the intricacy and significance of such experiences by presenting the works of 11 artists whose practice touches this omnipresent and delicate subject. Referring to personal experiences or touching on collective memory, the exhibited paintings, photographs, sculpture, and other mediums aim to help understand the importance of reckoning with loss and accepting what comes after. Questioning whether there is still a place for grief, despair, or helplessness in the world of widespread pharmacology, endless opportunities, fixation on personal growth, and obsession with constant positive thinking, Your Loss hopes to act as a soothing reminder that the feeling of loss is not a weakness and that, as a universal experience that connects us all, grief can be whatever we want it to be.
Historically, the ubiquitous subject of the transience of life, the impermanence and the fragility of existence, the inevitability of death, and consequential loss or grief have been extensively explored in art, often using symbolic language to convey these messages. Entire genres, such as vanitas or nature morte (still life) paintings from the 16th and 17th centuries of Dutch and Flemish art, were developed to help people deal with the ephemerality of life and the fleeting nature of worldly pleasures or achievements. By employing an alphabet of symbols such as skulls, wilting flowers, rotting fruit, half-eaten food, hourglasses, clocks, books, jewelry, or instruments, these works subtly invoked grief and loss over the inevitable passing of time and human existence. They communicated that life is subject to decay and dissolution, encouraging reflection on spiritual well-being rather than material pursuits. In addition to these archetypal tropes, an extensive catalog of individual works of art addresses this topic — Edward Munch's iconic The Scream, with its intense emotional suffering and existential angst; Pablo Picasso's powerful articulation of grief, destruction, and the trauma of war in Guernica; Frida Kahlo's reflection of grief over her body and lost dreams after a severe bus accident in The Broken Column; or Itaru Sasaki’s The Wind Phone, a poignant memorial for those grieving lost loved ones — all explore and propose ways of coming to terms with personal experience or accentuating the impact of global events.
One of the main reasons loss feels like a seismic, monumental event that alters our everyday life is that it feels, and often is, final, constant, and irrevocable — what or who we lose is gone forever. This permanence clashes with our ingrained ability to always consider options and develop ways of improving, making the overall experience much more intense. Whether it’s a person, a material good, a part or quality of life we’re familiar with or can identify with, or our identity itself, its permanent absence leaves a significant mark on our being — an emotional void that requires healing. And since our conventional tools for survival and overcoming life’s hurdles often fall short in the face of such loss, its monumental impact can shake an individual to their core, recalibrating their path and setting them in a new direction.
It’s important to point out that although the predominant, easily recognized form is the passing of a close person, similar, if not the same, dynamics apply to other currents of loss. Losing a home or an entire country could be another common manifestation, but losing dreams, ideals, trust, friendship, love, or one’s identity can be equally paralyzing and challenging. Taking place due to life’s circumstances or more significant systemic issues way out of an individual's control, the consequences and intensity of such seismic events are sometimes even trickier to recognize or empathize with. While the passing of a person is something that others could easily identify with, other forms of loss are more intimate and, therefore, more sophisticated to identify, address, and remedy. Our immediate surroundings often overlook these personal traits and experiences as reference points, making them more intense and profound to grapple with. And being a form of expression that “speaks where words are unable to explain”, art has an almost metaphysical ability to touch on these intangible, ambiguous emotions.
“No kind of therapy, no pill, no coach nor any shaman will protect us from inevitable losses, untapped possibilities, disappointment, aging, sickness, and death.” - Tomasz Stawiszyński, On the importance of sadness, 2020
Contemporary society fueled by modern-day capitalism suggests that life only develops upwards, lining up accomplishment after accomplishment, success after success, with no room for hiccups or drawbacks. Contrary to Francis Bacon’s poetic definition of life as “a short moment in existence”, the current obsession with constant self-improvement, positive thinking, and the pressure to eliminate helplessness cripples our ability to navigate it. Due to this exclusive mindset, sadness, grief, and mourning are often viewed as ugly, wrong, and generally unaesthetic, unappealing, or “disfavored content”. This attitude further isolates those experiencing these emotions, making the experience even lonelier and more traumatic while also imposing subtlety and discretion. Just as monotheistic religions looked down upon any questioning of life’s unfolding, the modern doctrine manically puts all the responsibility solely into the hands of an individual. By doing so, it’s perpetuating the myth of complete control over one's success or failure. With relentless positivity and the strength of individualism celebrated as unquestionable standards, any deviation from enjoying and celebrating life becomes unsettling and frightening. By consistently focusing on action and pressuring ourselves to keep moving on, the circumstantially needed moments of rest and reflection are put aside, only prolonging and widening the gap. A gap that, as conscious and sentient beings, we need to fill with new emotions and realizations as we come to terms with new reality or embark on a journey toward rediscovering joy and meaning.
The delusional “keep on keeping on” approach is increasingly promoted through self-betterment or self-help propaganda. Peddled through social media by self-proclaimed life coaches, experts, gurus, shamans, and others, it completely overlooks — or even ignores — the role of chance or coincidence as one of the crucial elements of life’s dynamics. The confusion and discord between what one might feel and what the surroundings suggest is often exacerbated by these conflicting inputs. The same source that delivers the idea of eternal success and perpetual accomplishment also glorifies hedonism and overconsumption, as well as bombards us with news, information, and visuals about endless human suffering, injustice, wars, genocides, and catastrophes taking place globally and in real time. And just as our everyday experience changes with these new dynamics, the artists are at the forefront of developing systems and strategies for distinguishing and coping with these issues.
By giving them a name, a shape, and a place, their work provides a much-needed way to recognize life's inherent struggles or limitations and a means to connect with feelings brewing deep under the carefully devised guise we present outwardly. This could be achieved by hinting at the transformation behind the apparent facade and revealing the intentions of the sitters (Karolina Żądło) or by commenting on the transient, often distorted way we perceive the world through screens, thus evoking themes of impermanence, ambiguity, and the fragility of human experience (Judith Eisler). Accepting the dreaded helplessness, vulnerability, or pain and growing through our suffering is an essential part of being a complete human, as it helps us confront reality authentically. In Maryna Brodovska’s work, we see how the loss of control over their lives, the painful adaptation to a new environment, “survivor’s guilt”, and other emotional experiences accompanying her “safe life” after leaving Ukraine prompted the photographer to "see the beauty of every second". Perhaps similarly, a nuanced understanding of how personal, familial, and cultural memory shapes one’s identity can be conveyed through a fluid relationship between form and meaning (Irinka Talakhadze), while tactile, organic shapes that evoke natural forms, such as bones, seeds, or roots, could symbolize cycles of life and death and highlight the idea that loss is not just an end but part of a larger cycle of transformation (Inma Barrero). As witnessed throughout history and around the globe, suppressing these vital emotions can lead to more suffering and harm, while embracing them can help recognize the complexity of the human condition and live more genuinely and compassionately.
So, instead of relentless competition and self-sufficiency dominating our mental space, it’s essential to understand the value of communal support and accepting vulnerability and helplessness. As fundamental parts of the human condition, they open up the possibility for deeper connection, empathy, and understanding of what “your loss” truly is and how grief feels. Whether loud or quiet, chaotic or serene, a shared experience or a solitary reflection, grief and related spectrum of emotions help us create a more compassionate relationship with ourselves and others navigating their paths through loss. Therefore, instead of being seen as a sign of weakness or failure, loss could be perceived as part of transformative experiences that connect us more deeply to our shared human fragility. As both the closing of a chapter marked by deep sorrow and a firm promise of renewal and transformation, it can be seen as the nucleus of the profound and endlessly intriguing subject which the human experience is.
Text written by Saša Bogojev.