Anna Kłos ‘Fragments of Time‘
Solo Exhibition
June 5, 2023 – September 30, 2023
Exhibition Curator: dr hab. Dariusz Mlącki
Anna Kłos is an artist and curator. Her interests in collage, mail art, and independent art date back to the 90s when she began creating her first typographic works and art-zines. She graduated with honors in 1999 from the Graphic Design Studio of Prof. Julian Pałka and Prof. Mieczysław Wasilewski. In 2007, she defended her doctoral thesis titled “Dadaist Collage as an Inspiration for My Creativity” at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin. Since 2008, she has been lecturing and teaching at the Higher School of Applied Informatics and Management (WIT) in Warsaw. In 2016, she founded the international project Retroavangarda, under which she realizes her artistic and curatorial projects.
In the Retroavangarda Gallery exhibition, Anna Kłos presents her latest series of collages titled “Fragments of Time.” Her collages are created using her own technique, in which the artist utilizes original 19th-century parchment covered with manuscripts, as well as typescripts and prints of technical drawings. The artist emphasizes the passage of time through the changing colors of materials from different years. Her works are characterized by a color palette consisting of various shades of yellowed paper, gray, black, and purple. Despite being composed of retro elements, Anna Kłos’s collages exhibit an avant-garde style.
An important element of each collage is the experimental typography, which conveys condensed messages or is treated as an image or sign. The fragments of texts and individual inscriptions that the artist incorporates into her works evoke personal memories. Extracted from their original context, these fragments of forgotten reality gain new life and form an entirely new image.
The subtle message is one of the characteristic features of Anna Kłos’s collages. The viewer is provoked to create their own interpretations of the artworks, becoming, in a sense, their co-creator. This allows everyone to experience the exhibition in their own individual and personal way. The small format of the collages, sophisticated color palette, and unique mode of communication with the viewer give the exhibition an intimate character.
Exhibition Catalog, ISBN: 978-83-67320-85-6
Organizers: Retroavangarda, WIT – Warsaw School of Information Technology, Apollo Rida
Layers of meaning in Anna Kłos’s collages
LAYERING of meaning becomes an important means of artistic expression in the work of Anna Klos. When the artist is preparing material for future collages, she draws inspiration from found fragments of letters, documents, signs carrying memories of emotions, and reaches into the realm of memory. She creates a new quality from the collected fragments of a dierent pictorial reality. In other words, a collage in the classical sense. Layers of matched elements begin to intermingle and convey content. Anna Kłos uses previously selected elements found in family archives and flea markets, which already carry (in their form) content of interest to her. In her own way, with a Dadaist spirit guiding her, she composes the image by combining opposites into one. With increased strength, she achieves a satisfying visual eect. In recent works, she has used original fragments of letters, old papers and technical documents. The works have become even more visually spacious and ambiguous. The perfectly matched colours of the faded papers, the textures of old age, the worn stamps, evoke emotions and are like a newly found key to a mysterious wardrobe. Her work stems from an emotional desire, which she restrains and transforms into a harmonious, sophisticated, chilled-out form. Typographic skills, experience in the area of artistic posters, media communications and, most importantly, the desire for an almost ecstatic collage-image, have allowed the artist to create a sublime work.
dr hab. Dariusz Mlącki 2023
Exhibition Curator
photo report from the opening of the exhibition: