An Eye for an Eye
People with no disability lend their healthy limbs to those who have lost an arm or a leg through amputation. Żmijewski portrays them in intimate embraces, blurring the boundaries of their separate bodies and creating a new, multi-limbed entity – and the absence of disability. - MUBI
Artur Żmijewski
Director
Sebastian Cichocki
Writer
Also Directed by Artur Żmijewski
On 16mm film, Żmijewski filmed six men who had had a leg amputated. They look us in the eye, each from his own frame, and silently show us their disability. A six-channel installation.
A group of deaf-mute students sing mass at a church in Warsaw. Accompanied by a dolorous organ they express themselves in a hitherto impossible way. The students cannot hear themselves or one another, but music is music. Particularly in God’s ears.
Presented at Documenta 14 in Athens.
Two man and a woman move around naked in a neuter space.
Democracies is a multi-part work consisting of twenty short documentaries exploring moments of collective fervour in public spaces. It can be shown either on a sequence of monitors or as a large projection, and is number one in an edition of three. The subjects of the videos range from political demonstrations and military parades to memorial services and football matches. The range of events is deliberately broad, featuring the Loyalists’ Parade on the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne in Belfast, protests in the West Bank against the Israeli occupation, and the funeral of the far right Austrian politician Jörg Haider in Vienna. Each segment is presented without commentary, leaving the viewer to form his or her own impression of the unfolding events.
Polish artist Artur Zmijewski asked a group of visually impaired people to paint the world as they see it. Some of the volunteers were congenitally disabled; others became blind in their lifetime. In the film they draw self-portraits and landscapes, occasionally asking the artist for instructions or giving verbal explanation for their decisions. Their paintings are clumsy and abstract. It is however not the resulting works but the process of making them that is at the core of the film.
Quiet observation of a physically handicapped woman. The initial images, reminiscent of footage shot for patient records, reveal that effortless movement isn’t always a given. Luckily a sun-drenched day makes every walk a little better.
Actors interpreting the movements of psychiatric patients.
A couple of turkish artists in Germany visit the Reichsparteitagsgelände.
Two performers (Katarzyna Kozyra and Artur Zmijewski) observe eachother in a simple environment, moving on a big white blanket.
