Press Release

At the end of Razem Pamoja Foundation residency in Athens, the artist prepared a site-specific intervention at the city's largest flea market - Bazaar Scavenger - where long-serving items get their afterlife.

As often in his practice, Cezary Poniatowski combines used items and deals with their materiality and symbolism. In Athens, he reflects specifically on the cycle of decay of the initial use and ownership of the millions of objects thrown out and then rediscovered by sellers and searchers in the new context. In this universe, that process feels almost organic and deeply humane - people unveil and release trash's hidden and forgotten potential, as in the old days when nothing was worthless. However, it contrasts drastically with the co-existence of the growing business of Chinese wholesalers nearby, where extremely cheap objects produced massively are, by definition, deprived of value and meaning.

Poniatowski's take is not purely nostalgic as he highlights the candor, artlessness and rationality of reusing and recycling everyday objects that we so desperately need to survive on the planet for a little longer.

A mere mortal is limited in an endless number of ways. Still, nobody denies the almost alchemical capability of the microbes to produce fertilizing compost from junk and thus to allow the rebirth of their own microcosm.