_ X Lubliners | Ulrike Grossarth

X Lubliners

Lublin 2015

The advertising panels for the tailor shops in ulica Nowa, which I discovered in Stefan Kiełsznia’s photographs depict painted bales of cloth, piled obliquely one above another to form a cross, with an associated square or triangular decorative element floating above, creating an overall impression reminiscent of abstract bodies. After conducting some studies in the Textile Museum in Łódź, I reconstructed these advertisements in 1930s colors. A number of works have been occasioned by these motifs. In the X Lubliners project, they were used in a special way, being cut as objects from cardboard and coloured, in eight different versions, in the ‘Lublin patterns’ shown on the billboards.

The photo shoot took place in September 2015 at SYMBOL gotowy/ sklep in Lublin. The visitors chose two of them and held them joined together with both hands in front of their bodies at the moment of photographing. The conscious perception of the metaphor of the situation is reflected in the openness of the participants’ personal expression.