VODKA REVISITED

VODKA REVISITED

This presentation is partly a recreation of the 2003 exhibition and partly a discussion with its content. Two objects shown in 2003 at the 3XL exhibition as VODKA, owned by the SPATiF club in Sopot, required reconstruction. While working on this, I noticed that the reflection of a 34-year-old then has changed for me now. I wanted to discuss how I see today the situation of a meeting over alcohol between a man and a woman who are strangers. But even the meaning of the installation has changed. Conversations and explorations make me look differently at the works I created. These old works are not exceptional. They belong to that time. They show a young man, convinced of his advantages, a man who offers a woman a shared night—sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. She can refuse—she knows he will propose again, some other time. The images I found today in fashion magazines have been there since the late 1990s. They show nostalgic women in beautiful hotel interiors, lonely in rooms, as if they no longer expect proposals, and are afraid to propose themselves. A mature man no longer proposes, he does not want confrontation. Because of age, position, maybe ridicule. So, am I a creator or a copier submitting to the times? Maybe just a more sensitive and conscious observer of reality? I wonder if my comments matter or if they are just following a trend—a trend crafted for marketing, for the market. Or maybe asking questions about one’s own way of understanding the world allows one to formulate answers more precisely? But is it important to know and understand why? If reflection cannot lead to change, and one’s own thinking is only a part of the mass of one’s age, society, and the time we live in—what is the point of these efforts? And so, from thinking about sex came nostalgia for maturing. Strange what comes over a man when welding lamps.

Objects and photo selection – Maciej Śmietański
Video – Maciej Śmietański; Editing – Tomasz Halski
Photos – VOGUE editions 1996–2017

© Maciej Śmietański 2017