Moloch is another environment entirely designed and created by myself. I have been designing and producing fair stands booths for years. I traveled to the world’s largest trade shows and consumption festivals, observing how much money and natural resources were being wasted. The Moloch installation was my response, allowing me to mock the world of mass production while simultaneously utilizing its aesthetics, adding a touch of fashion ease and trash elements drawn from graffiti. The entire work consists of typical trade show booth elements, such as a counter, leaflets, a display case for demonic Haribo figurines, a lightbox, a mirror, child heads, and a film featuring a sales assistant. Moloch is an amusing yet also sad tale about the condition of our times, which, under a veil of irony and play with the viewer, hides darkness and an unsettling reflection on how humanity has traded its freedom for peace, security, and a shred of dignity.
Curatorial text
Piotr Kolanko “Moloch”
The yard sale is over. Yard sales are reputed to be an event that integrates neighbors, thanks to which unnecessary items gain a new life. The antipodes of garage sales in the field of trade are fairs. Piotr Kolanko has just returned from one of them.
Piotr Kolanko’s activities seem incompatible with each other. He can be a visual artist, a contractor for corporate orders and a participant in night bombing. In the first quarter of 2024, Piotr Kolanko is implementing an exhibition triptych in Krakow – a totem pole with many faces. “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear” at Galeria Olympia is an extension of “All my hairy thoughts”, curated by Weronika Plińska at Galeria Podbrzezie.
The space of the Olympia Gallery becomes a trade fair stand located in a toilet cover in graffiti. For the needs of the exhibition, the “Moloch” brand is established; although its existence is temporary, it is equipped with all the necessary attributes of a new brand – from the logo to a trade fair stand with a counter, a lightbox banner and a cocktail table for conversations with customers. The ephemerality of the “Moloch” brand is no different from the transience of stands at real fairs. Taking part in these several-day-long trade events, the artist observed the tons of waste they generated. He came up with the idea of reusing them creatively by reversing the demolition process. “Moloch” materializes from the ashes of consumption festivals.
“Moloch” only pretends to greatness; it is in fact a shell that will fall apart at any moment, but is it for sure?. Piotr Kolanko’s installation is on all the things that we do not want to take and throw away immediately after use. The “Moloch” brand sets up a stand in a toilet – a place where we leave our waste and do not take anything from it.
“Objects in mirror are closer than they appear” may be considered a slogan whose high frequency of occurrence has taken away the original meaning of the warning. The phrase loses its usefulness, slowly becoming a synonym for travel. “Moloch” clearly reminds that “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear” is also a disturbing prediction of an approaching danger and accident.
Robert Domżalski
