Franciszek Duszeńko – Monuments /2012 - 2013/

Co-financed by a grant from the budget of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage / Co-financed by the City of Gdańsk, by a grant from the Kulturalne Miasto Gdańsk.

In their numerous works, Karska & Went deal with the issue of memory, and with forgotten and ignored aspects of culture. They document vanishing areas of contemporary art, and present a cultural phenomena derived from the fringes of urban spaces and peripheries of imagination. In their dialogue with the past, the artists avoid historical narration, but they explore images of latent memory instead. Karska & Went turn toward the past in one of their recent projects called “Monuments”, which they’ve created in memory of the deceased, outstanding sculptor Franciszek Duszeńko (1925-2008). In order to revive his works in a dialogue with the present rather than commemorating the sculptor, the artists show models of Duszeńko’s little-known sculptures displayed inside maquettes imitating various exhibition spaces. This approach led Karska and Went into questions about the place of the sculptor’s works in contemporary culture, the role of museums, and the methods of keeping memory alive.

karska went monumenty