Olga Lewicka: There ain´t no second chance against the thing with forty eyes

For Olga Lewicka, art should be seen primarily as a tool of resistance. Hence, in her work, the viewer is repeatedly presented with apparently all-powerful structures and adversaries in such a way that allows these to be experienced in both a distanced and immediately sensual way. Her current installation deals with several overlapping forms of power: explicit practices of surveillance and the staging of power, diffuse and anonymous power structures, and scarcely detectable practices of personal self control. As a result of the confrontation between a rigorous abstract painting and an image that draws on the tradition of ‘pathetic-sublime’ cloud painting, with playful collages on paper and references to the way power is subverted or reversed within the staging techniques of pop culture, a striking atmosphere emerges in which the weightiness of triumphal power is contrasted with an irresistible lightness – a thought-tool that first makes us aware of the dominance of the tendencies treated, but which, precisely in this way, is also capable of inspiring forms of resistance. (Carsten Zorn)

Olga Lewicka
THERE AIN´T NO SECOND CHANCE AGAINST THE THING WITH FORTY EYES