Metascore of New Gestures – exhibition

Sound and graphic installations, video works, and a series of graphics on paper, 2022

Curator: Piotr Lisowski
Muzeum Współczesne Wrocław
Wroclaw Contemporary Museum
23.6–26.9 2022

Exhibition views from the Wrocław Contemporary Museum
Sound installations and video works by Jacek Doroszenko

Ewa Doroszenko Jacek Doroszenko Partytura nowych gestów – Muzeum Współczesne Wrocław wystawa 10
Ewa Doroszenko Jacek Doroszenko Metascore of New Gestures Wrocław Contemporary Museum – exhibition 02
Ewa Doroszenko Jacek Doroszenko Metascore of New Gestures Wrocław Contemporary Museum – exhibition 01
Ewa Doroszenko Jacek Doroszenko Partytura nowych gestów – Muzeum Współczesne Wrocław wystawa 09
Ewa Doroszenko Jacek Doroszenko Partytura nowych gestów – Muzeum Współczesne Wrocław wystawa 06
Ewa Doroszenko Jacek Doroszenko Partytura nowych gestów – Muzeum Współczesne Wrocław wystawa 05
Ewa Doroszenko Jacek Doroszenko Partytura nowych gestów – Muzeum Współczesne Wrocław wystawa 11
Ewa Doroszenko Jacek Doroszenko Metascore of New Gestures Wrocław Contemporary Museum – exhibition 03
Ewa Doroszenko Jacek Doroszenko Metascore of New Gestures Wrocław Contemporary Museum – exhibition 04

Metascore of New Gestures – exhibition

Sound and graphic installations, video works, and a series of graphics on paper, 2022

Curator: Piotr Lisowski
Muzeum Współczesne Wrocław
Wroclaw Contemporary Museum
23.6–26.9 2022

Exhibition views from the Wrocław Contemporary Museum
Sound installations and video works by Jacek Doroszenko

The exhibition entitled Metascore of New Gestures is a review of joint artistic experiments carried out by Ewa and Jacek Doroszenko in 2016–2022. Wrocław Contemporary Museum presents sound installations, video works and a series of graphics on paper. The duo’s creative work stems from their fascination with the relations between sound, space and visuality. In this triad, acoustic phenomena constitute the basis for artistic work, but the space that determines the entire process is equally important, providing the activities with a performative aspect.

Audiovisual experiments in contemporary art date back to neo-avant-garde activities of the 1960s and 1970s. The dynamic relationships between visual artists and musicians, the interdisciplinary nature of the new media that began to appear at that time, and activities in the field of happening and performance gave rise to creative practices that permanently situated sound in the context of experimental artistic phenomena. Using a wide range of tools and techniques, Ewa and Jacek Doroszenko focus on the role of the sense of hearing in the process of experiencing space. They pay special attention to the soundscape – a layer of reality that surrounds us, which is usually treated only as a background or complement to the visible sphere. The Doroszenkos try to reverse this perspective and treat sound, not image, as the main carrier of meanings and content.

An important aspect of Doroszenkos’ strategy is the theme of travel. The artists carry out their activities as part of artist-in-residence programmes, visiting places which they explore in order to map and archive their soundscapes. They create graphic records reflecting the acoustic nature of a given place, specific scores with an autonomous form. Sometimes it is sound itself that remains the main subject, visualising the space and revealing the acoustic essence of reality.

Space also plays an important role in the context of the exhibition. The unique architecture of the building which houses the museum influences the perception of the works, both visually and acoustically. The arrangement of the installations and objects by Ewa and Jacek Doroszenko highlights the austere, openwork and claustrophobic nature of the museum’s interior. The exhibition becomes a score for the artists’ gestures, emphasising the acoustic qualities of this action rather than its visual aspects. It is a presentation of the artists’ experiments carried out in a specific context, but also an autonomous notation that resonates here and now.

Curator: Piotr Lisowski