My Journey Through Piotr Szyhalski’s Survey Exhibition
AKA: “We Are Working All The Time!”
BY SYDNEY PESHON WITH ART BY JACQUELYN FAY
Multimedia artist, Piotr Szyhalski, is currently showcasing an impressive array of genres and mediums of expression at the Weisman Art Museum. The moment you walk into the Weisman, you’ll be greeted by two walls filled to the brim with poster-style prints commenting on the detrimental impact of COVID and the ramifications of the 2020 election, only to soon stumble upon his biography escorted by a glass case containing rusted workforce tools, such as a hammer, shovel, and pickaxe. His progressive and populist attitude bleeds into the bulk of his work, which investigates the meaning of common labor, understanding, and participation through poster design, mail art, sound art, and large scale installations. Along with the central idea his work focuses on, “we are working all the time,” he also uses jarring phrases on his conceptual paintings and posters, such as: “Do not think of the truth. Think of something else. Nothing is right,” something that made my blood run cold as I passed through art installations that Szyhalski constructed over the course of his three decade long career.
Although I’m no stranger to being yelled at by an overly audacious “Karen” for burnt toast in the food-service industry, I wasn’t prepared to feel the turmoil of what it meant to be exploited by work through Piotr’s portrayal–I felt uneasy by the myriad of drop cloths questioning the value of work itself, an entire wall of colorful shovels, and paintings depicting a surreal surgical procedure. A few of his paintings were a dispirited beige color offset by the occasional collection of red string, attracting the eye towards the pain that comes with manual labor. Szyhalski’s art offers an empowering yet often dejected visual experience, along with a digestible account of how we treat and have treated vital workers. Overall, Piotr presents an all encompassing presentation of what it means to experience and participate in a system that reduces individuals into miniscule cogs within the larger ever-turning wheels of modern society’s machine for the sole purpose of evergrowing monetary progression. While the conglomerates succeed, the individuals running the operations are exposed for what they are seen as from the executive's perspective–pawns in an end-sum scheme.