a large presentation of works by Marcin Maciejowski (born 1974) – a painter and draughtsman, one of the most fascinating and renowned artists of the younger generation...

The exhibition "That's How It Is" will be the first in Poland such a large presentation of works by Marcin Maciejowski (born 1974) – a painter and draughtsman, one of the most fascinating and renowned artists of the younger generation. In the Main Building of the National Museum in Kraków, on the area of 1000 square metres, visitors will have an opportunity to see more than one hundred paintings, most from recent years, loaned from museums and private collections in Austria, Great Britain, Germany, Poland and the USA. Several works have been painted by Maciejowski specifically for this first solo exhibition of his paintings at the Museum.

Marcin Maciejowski made his debut in Kraków in the 1990s, so he developed as an artist in the era of transformation, at the time when as a result of the economic and social changes, the mass media grew rapidly. In his painting, realistic by principle, the artist engages in a dialogue with the mass media and pop culture represented by them. Borrowing from the media is a significant characteristic of these paintings: the classic, academic "study from nature" has been replaced by the "study" from an amateur photograph, an illustration cut from a newspaper, a film shot or the Internet. Cuttings and photographs collected by Maciejowski build up a peculiar media archive.
Paintings displayed in the space called "Oświęcim" on one hand impose on the viewer the role of a voyeur, and on the other hand – refer to the viewer's private collection of memories. In the scene "Do You Expect Me to Let You Go", the artist is concerned with a film image perceived by the viewer as in conformity with reality. Maciejowski deconstructs e.g. The Godfather into fragments following the principles of composing a painting. "Rest" is a part of the exhibition aimed at relieving the viewer of the pressure of everyday image overload.