Wet Paint. TIFF Festival 2021

We invite you to the Studio BWA Wrocław gallery for the exhibition of the Main Program of the TIFF Festival International Photography Festival.

Ancient marble sculptures, commonly perceived as one of the main symbols of the Western beauty canon, were not white. We naively believe that the concept of “white marble” is synonymous with high art and a guarantee of true aesthetics.

In reality, however, the sculptures of the gods and heroes of ancient Greece varied in color – they were covered in bright hues, decorated with gold and silver, and the eyes of the statues were inlaid with glass and jewels. Nevertheless, when we look at them, we still think of white…

At Prokopiou Studio’s exhibition, presented as part of the TIFF Festival, we will see a series of photographs titled Wet Paint. The exhibition is an attempt to settle accounts with the duo’s Greek heritage – in an ambiguous way, typical of their work. While looking at the photographs, we do not know whether the portraits of the deities are a joke of the ancient world or a tribute paid to it. The intensity of the staging and the “vulgar” colors of the paints used to decorate the models’ bodies are both historically appropriate and iconoclastic. Prokopiou Studio’s photographs are hyper-realistic and hyper-drawn – reality piles up and multiplies to the point of becoming a fairy tale. An important aspect of Prokopiou Studio’s practice is the construction of fleeting situations and events that end up as the duo’s “real” artistic work. As a result, the photographs we see in the gallery become only a documentation of a created, ephemeral situation – its side effect.

Artists: Studio Prokopiou (Phillip Prokopiou, Panos Poimenidis)

About the artists

London-based Phillip Prokopiou was born in South Africa to a family of Greek immigrants. He started his practice in 2014 under the name Studio Prokopiou, which was also co-founded by Panos Poimenidis, who is of Greek origin. With their work, the photographers explore issues of identity and self-creation, drawing on appropriations of visual tropes drawn from classical art history, pop culture and mythology, as well as categories of the artificial and the camp. Their work is the result of an ongoing dialogue between the duo and the subjects of the photographs. The artists act internationally and have had their work featured in Vogue Italia, among others. The British Journal of Photography included them in its 2018 Ones to Watch Issue list.

Opening hours during Festival (3-5.09.2021)

About TIFF Festival

TIFF Festival was held for the first time in 2011. It was created in Wrocław and has been dedicated to photography from the very beginning. Established to animate and shoot the photographic life in the city and the region, it gains strength from year to year. TIFF not only affects its hometown, but also affects the whole of Poland, while trying to increase the scope of the event to an international level.