Agnes Janich, née: Agnieszka Jeziorska, (born 1985) - a visual artist who works with photography and installation art. Within her practice she deals with the history of memory, love and intimacy. She has presented her work in, among others: 9th Sharjah Biennial in the United Arab Emirates, Galapagos Art Space in New York, Maison Europeene de la Photographie in Paris, Central European House of Photography in Bratislava, Bergen Museum of Art, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Kunsthalle Exnergasse in Vienna and the Auschwitz Jewish Center in Oświęcim affiliated with the Museum of Jewish Heritage, New York. She took part in Art Edition Fair in Seoul Arts Center, Hangaram Art Museum. She is based in Geneva, Switzerland.
Early life and education
Janich was born in Łódź, Poland, though soon after her birth her family moved to Singapore and the Republic of South Africa. She began her education in the Republic of South Africa. Having been raised in an multinational and multicultural environment has influenced her and had impact on her further career and choices. Also, the fact that she was raised in a traditional family of Polish and likely assimilated Jewish descent proved to be of great importance for her further artistic career and identity, i.e., at an early stage of her career she decided to change her name from Polish 'Agnieszka' to English 'Agnes' and assumed the surname 'Janich' after her Jewish great grandma. This choice demonstrates an important role of the family history in her life. She became a member of liberal Jewish communities in New York and in Poland.
Janich's formal education in art history started in the 1st Private High School in Bednarska Street, Warsaw, Poland (2000-2003). She continued her studies at the University of Warsaw (2003-2004), got a Degree with Honors in Fine Art Photography and Commercial Photography from the European Academy of Photography in Warsaw (2003-2005), studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (2004–2005), and finally concluded her education holding a BFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts in New York (2006-2008), a college that shaped artists such as Keith Haring.
Career
Janich's works reveal her two major interests: one is Holocaust-based themes. Another are: love, sex and emotional entanglement, often seen from a perspective of social norms or cultural restrictions. Based upon that distinction, Janich's career can be divided into two periods: first dating from her early works until 2012, and the second from 2013 to present.
During the first phase Janich has been exploring the history of Holocaust via her own family roots and relating it to the general notion of purity and innocence as opposed to terror, violence and destruction. What is distinctive in her approach is that almost all narrations she presents come either from a herstorical point of view, showing feminist approach and women's perspective, or are communicated by the most defenseless of protagonists, i.e. children.
In the second phase the major interests distinguishable in Janich's art include searching through emotions, intimacy and sexual relations in search of what can be called 'the root of tension' between two individuals tangled in a relationship, often of a social or cultural origin. In this case as well Janich often applies feminist approach.
Selected works
Man to Man (2009) It is an multi-video installation in form of a labyrinth leading the viewer through complete darkness to the wall projections of fangs and claws accompanied by the sound of barking dogs. It constitutes the first part of the War Trilogy made by Janich over a period of three years: Man to Man (2009), Bits and Pieces (2010), and Cleanliness is Goodliness (2012), addressing the subject of preserving memory and violence. The work was first presented in 2009 during the ninth Sharjah Biennial in the United Arab Emirates, where it was well received and commented as a disturbing project "where viewers were led through a maze of darkened passages to rooms that dead-ended with videos of relentlessly barking dogs restrained in prison-like cages".
Its interpretation is unambiguous: "This extremely claustrophobic work is a comment about prisons and enslavement". Its main theme is brutal violence and an attempt at dehumanization done to individuals. The critics as well as the viewers have responded to that "(...) distinct suggestion of dirty wet fur, ruddy dog breath, and high-pitched fear" with anxiety, which was fully intentional, as the piece was inspired by the Auschwitz doghouse. This perspective provides this work not only with its historical references, but may also suggest drawing attention to the suffering of dogs in shelters as well as to individual pain.
