Temperance & Work
/8
- Temperance & Work
- Powściągliwość i Praca
- 1995
- video, color, sound
- 6min, 50sec
The video "Temperance & Work" is an early piece in which Artur Żmijewski performs together with artist colleague Katarzyna Kozyra. Both artists are nude and shot in close-ups while they knead and deform each other's bodies. The work is a continuation of Żmijewski’s graduation project, a series of black-and-white photographs in which a naked couple performs similar actions. These photographs were presented in a curved library cabinet with an intricate spring mechanism to open the drawers. An equally important focus of this video is on the vulnerability of the human body, with images showing the fleshy colors of body parts which go against the laws of advertising beauty. Through the use of close-up shots, traditional sex and gender roles seem to dissolve, as it is the malleable skin which dominates the scene without referencing the actual physiques of the involved bodies. Hence Żmijewski’s video opts for an alternative view of the body and the surface tissues which cover its anatomical and organic mechanisms. W.S.