GENERAL STORE
CONTEMPORARY

office:
2/11 Hughes St 
Potts Point, 
Sydney 2011

T:+61(0)414 844 365
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Directors:

Ben Gavin
Jasmine Kean

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Polish artist Marta Jurkowska's videos portray 
indifference towards the media, the human 
conditions, public and private spaces - it's 
configurations, seductive attributes and 
convictions of materialistic illusionism.

Based on a extract of text by Jonathan Crary, 
'the processes of stimulation is an ongoing 
crisis of attentiveness, in which the changing
configurations of capitalism continually push 
attention and distraction to new limits and 
thresholds'.
The collective consciousness of the post modern 
- media culture has no space which hasn't been 
invaded, overlooked or sustained with an endless 
growth of new products and sources of stimulation 
and streams of information. This continuation 
of managing and regulating perception is what 
matters to Jurkowska.

The 'Outsider' series of works composed of 
multi-screen video installation is an apparent 
representation of an inner city immersion - 
an abandonment of privacy for public deliberation. 
However, through an extensive dialogue of 
documentary and fiction we are emerged in a 
parallel display of artifical worlds seen 
through windows and monitor screens. Jurkowska 
depicts an unusual relationship towards public 
spaces - behind the scenes she evokes the 
characters to express their hidden desire and 
emotion, contractions and indifference.
As tempting and convincing as 'paradise' may be 
percieved to the collective conscious Jurkowska's 
logic points out the isolation and the absurdity 
of human conditions on the verge of a crisis. 
This transition invites us to apprehend the false 
promises made by materialistic salvation.

Marta Jurkowska 
Lives & Works in Berlin

Text by Ben Gavin