About The Project
Iron Oxide is an independent association formed by Polish artists and curators who want to push contemporary art forward. The artists involved, for now, are: the Monstfur collective, Tomasz Górnicki, Simpson and Seikon. The project is curated by Jan Sętowski.
Iron Oxide claims that artists were brave, independent and dedicated to the street, and they are now losing their roots with controlled and sponsored interventions or even getting into the art galleries.
With the intention of denouncing this trend and renewing the initial spirit, the group decided to travel in Europe to carry out illegal art interventions.
Starting in Poland, the artists made their first stop in Paris, then the Netherlands and ending in Berlin where they chose the Chemiewerk Rüdersdorf, an old abandoned chemical factory that once owned by the Nazis during the Second World War, and then by the Soviets, and was the primary location for the film “Enemy at the Gates” starring Jude Law, Joseph Fiennes And Rachel Weisz, directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud.
False Prophet in Chemiewerk Rüdersdorf factory in Berlin
The initial feeling entering the factory is of an abandoned Gothic cathedral. Tomasz Gornicki and the collective Monstfur decided to create about ten installations and paintings that fit the gloomy environment.
Tomasz Gornicki’s work, throughout the journey, was based on archetypes such as death, sex, origins, personality, hope, and parenting. In the factory the first thought went to religion. Driven by laic and anti-religious feeling, artists have built an altar in a place that, as they say, “looks like a postnuclear Notre-dame.”
The (false) prophet who speaks on the altar of this imposing (pseudo) cathedral is “the forgotten god, that no one prays to. Or false god, a liar, trying to posses lost and hopeless people minds, bringing them to perdition”.
In short, a gloomy image that can, however, make you think and excite by taking your breath away.
About The Artists
Tomasz Gornicki was born in 1986 in Warsaw. Graduated art class in XXXIV Miguel de Cervantes High School in 2004. In 2010 graduated with honors on Sculpture Department at Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw in the studio of professor Janusz Antonii Pastwa. His interests revolve around realism. His sculptures operate on a monumental scale as well as in small form, combining materials such as bronze, stone, and aluminium. In his themes revolve around the symbolic world, and archetypes. He lives with his wife and son in the countryside of Poland.
Monstfur is an indigenous organism of artland, subsisting on the byproducts of modern life and the cultural carrion of generations past. It expresses itself on the rusted steel sheets and redundant signage and finally walls. Paintings created by Collective can be found at prestigious fairs like Stroke Art Fair in Munich, where the objects are exhibited alongside high profile artists such as Banksy. In 2015 Monstfur was awarded the Grand Prix in the competition Stencil Art Prize organized by Ambush Gallery in Sydney. Their artworks have been presented at solo and group exhibitions in Berlin, Paris, Stockholm, Sydney and Warsaw. They have also found their place in major museum collections in Poland (m.in. Muzeum Śląskie w Katowicach).
Photos courtesy of Tomasz Gornicki.
Iron Oxide: web | facebook | instagram
Tomasz Gornicki: web | facebook
Monstfur: web | facebook | instagram
