Untitled 8AJ_2951, 2014
Archival pigment print, blind embossed stamp and signed by the artist
Print size
21.75 x 15.5 in (55 x 39 cm) Edition of 7
42 x 29.5 in (107 x 75 cm) Edition of 5
I don’t have to wait for a starry night,
I don’t have to crane my neck
to get a look at it.
I’ve got the sky behind my back, at hand, and on my eyelids.
The sky binds me tight
and sweeps me off my feet.
— Wisława Szymborska
Untitled 7AU_4310, 2010
Archival pigment print, blind embossed stamp and signed by the artist
Print size
21.75 x 15.5 in (55 x 39 cm) Edition of 7
42 x 29.5 in (107 x 75 cm) Edition of 3
Untitled F81_3991, 2020
Archival pigment print, blind embossed stamp and signed by the artist
Print size
21.75 x 15.5 in (55 x 39 cm) Edition of 7
42 x 29.5 in (107 x 75 cm) Edition of 3
My dreams — even they’re not as populous as they should be.
They hold more solitude than noisy crowds
— Wisława Szymborska
Untitled 8AJ_2946, 2014
Archival pigment print, blind embossed stamp and signed by the artist
Print size
21.75 x 15.5 in (55 x 39 cm) Edition of 7
42 x 29.5 in (107 x 75 cm) Edition of 5
Untitled 81D_5856, 2015
Archival pigment print, blind embossed stamp and signed by the artist
Print size
21.75 x 15.5 in (55 x 39 cm) Edition of 7
42 x 29.5 in (107 x 75 cm) Edition of 3
In a real dark night of the soul, it is always three o’clock in the morning, day after day
— F. Scott Fitzgerald
Untitled 81B_1973, 2015
Archival pigment print, blind embossed stamp and signed by the artist
Print size
21.75 x 15.5 in (55 x 39 cm) Edition of 7
42 x 29.5 in (107 x 75 cm) Edition of 3
Dividing earth and sky
is not the right way
to contemplate this wholeness.
It simply lets me go on living
at a more exact address
where I can be reached promptly if I’m sought.
My identifying features
are rapture and despair.
— Wisława Szymborska
Untitled 75C_1401, 2015
Archival pigment print, blind embossed stamp and signed by the artist
Print size
21.75 x 15.5 in (55 x 39 cm) Edition of 7
42 x 29.5 in (107 x 75 cm) Edition of 3
Untitled 75C_1321, 2015
Archival pigment print, blind embossed stamp and signed by the artist
Print size
21.75 x 15.5 in (55 x 39 cm) Edition of 7
42 x 29.5 in (107 x 75 cm) Edition of 3
How easy life is when it’s easy, and how hard when it’s hard...
Untitled 8AH_2122, 2014
Archival pigment print, blind embossed stamp and signed by the artist
Print size
21.75 x 15.5 in (55 x 39 cm) Edition of 7
42 x 29.5 in (107 x 75 cm) Edition of 5
Untitled 8AG_0308, 2014
Archival pigment print, blind embossed stamp and signed by the artist
Print size
21.75 x 15.5 in (55 x 39 cm) Edition of 7
42 x 29.5 in (107 x 75 cm) Edition of 5
Untitled 8AA_3737, 2012
Archival pigment print, blind embossed stamp and signed by the artist
Print size
21.75 x 15.5 in (55 x 39 cm) Edition of 7
42 x 29.5 in (107 x 75 cm) Edition of 3
Imagined voices, and beloved, too,
of those who died, or of those who are
lost unto us like the dead.
Sometimes in our dreams, they speak to us; sometimes in its thought, the mind will hear them. And with their sound for a moment there return sounds from the first poetry of our life—
like music, in the night, far off, that fades away.
— C. P. Cavafy Kavafis
Untitled 81E_7298, 2016
Archival pigment print, blind embossed stamp and signed by the artist
Print size
21.75 x 15.5 in (55 x 39 cm) Edition of 7
42 x 29.5 in (107 x 75 cm) Edition of 3
Dear Lady, Queen of Solitude
I thank you with my heart
For keeping me so close to thee
While so many, oh so many, stood apart...
— Leonard Cohen
Untitled BB7_0906, 2013
Archival pigment print, blind embossed stamp and signed by the artist
Print size
21.75 x 15.5 in (55 x 39 cm) Edition of 7
42 x 29.5 in (107 x 75 cm) Edition of 3
Untitled BB7_0792, 2013
Archival pigment print, blind embossed stamp and signed by the artist
Print size
21.75 x 15.5 in (55 x 39 cm) Edition of 7
42 x 29.5 in (107 x 75 cm) Edition of 5
Untitled 81D_4662, 2015
Archival pigment print, blind embossed stamp and signed by the artist
Print size
21.75 x 15.5 in (55 x 39 cm) Edition of 7
42 x 29.5 in (107 x 75 cm) Edition of 3
O solitude of longing
Where love has been confined
Come healing of the body
Come healing of the mind
... O see the darkness yielding
That tore the light apart
Come healing of the reason
Come healing of the heart...
— Leonard Cohen
“How did it get so late so soon...”
F81_4379, 2020
Archival pigment print, blind embossed stamp and signed by the artist
Print size
21.75 x 15.5 in (55 x 39 cm) Edition of 7
42 x 29.5 in (107 x 75 cm) Edition of 3
Untitled 81I_4490, 2017
Archival pigment print, blind embossed stamp and signed by the artist
Print size
21.75 x 15.5 in (55 x 39 cm) Edition of 7
42 x 29.5 in (107 x 75 cm) Edition of 3
“Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt” 8AA_3730, 2012–2020
Archival pigment print, blind embossed stamp and signed by the artist
Print size
21.75 x 15.5 in (55 x 39 cm) Edition of 7
42 x 29.5 in (107 x 75 cm) Edition of 5
Nailya Alexander Gallery is pleased to present Jurek Wajdowicz: Every Exit is an Entrance, the artist’s first solo exhibition at the gallery, on view online Monday 24 May through Friday 23 July 2021.
In his dual practice as a graphic designer and artist, Jurek Wajdowicz (b. 1951, Cracow, Poland) explores what, at first glance, are oppositions. On the one hand, in his work for international non-governmental institutions that are fighting for a safer, healthier, and more just world, the artist engages with sometimes disturbing images of poverty, famine, inequality, and violence, incorporating them into bold graphic designs. On the other hand, when he turns his focus to his personal photographic work, he creates more peaceful, contemplative images, which bring about an atmosphere of illumination, meditation, tranquility, and hope.
The complexity in this work has evolved from Wajdowicz’s own life experience. In the foreword to Wajdowicz’s book Liminal Spaces (Lars Müller Publishers, 2014), Fred Ritchin Dean Emeritus of the International Center of Photography (ICP) School, observes, “In an adjacent universe, Wajdowicz is one of our foremost designers in active pursuit of human rights…In his uncompromising photojournalistic collaborations, he has been to places gripped in the throes of conflict or strife. Embodied in his personal work is a response.”
Wajdowicz’s images are created through the lens, without computer enhancements, leaving the literal behind as color, light, and form that are carefully shaped to near or absolute abstraction. As a result, the viewer may experience a poem, a piece of music, or a vision, defined not only by what the artist reveals, but by what we ourselves discover in his work. Indeed, his works actively negotiate the space between photography and painting, as the intimacy and minimalism of each piece gives one the strong sense that the colors and shapes have been applied directly by the artist’s own hand.
Jurek Wajdowicz began his career as a graphic artist after receiving a Master of Arts degree from the Lodz Academy of Fine Arts. Since 1977, he has lived and worked in New York City. His visual design studio EWS (Emerson, Wajdowicz Studio), created in partnership with senior art director and principal Lisa LaRochelle, works with international humanitarian organizations and leading non-profit institutions around the world.
Wajdowicz’s work can be found in the collections of the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg; the Museum of Contemporary Design and Applied Arts, Lausanne; the Poster Museum, Warsaw; the Modern Art Museum, Lodz; the Book Art Museum, Lodz; the United States Library of Congress, Washington, DC; the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, New York; the Arcus Foundation, New York; and the Rockefeller Foundation, New York, among other collections.
