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We all know what manspreading means. “It is a manifestation of a culturally established belief about men’s unalienable right to impose their individual presence in space”. As Anna Chromik states in her curatorial commentary on the exhibition, ‘manspreading’ is also the confidence of domination based on power and disdain towards the underprivileged, as well as showing no consideration for others.
What is womanspreading then”? Well, what is it indeed? We do not consider it a 1:1 response to the aggressive masculine gesture met with the similar intrusion of a female knee. Quoting the leading text again: “certainly, a woman sitting with her legs apart might evoke – literally and metaphorically — a powerful and critical initiation gesture of agency and reclaiming her corporeality, as well as a rebellion against the obligation to keep your knees together like a good girl.” But oh, it is so much more than just that. As much as we love the idea of “this is our fucking time now” (again, the quotation from the text), we believe womanspreading to be a lively wave claiming the reality of today. It spreads into physical space of bodily comfort and freedom of movement that reaches beyond stylizing the body for the pleasure of the male gaze. What is more, it is very much about spreading the “infection” of dreamy eeriness, the spectral glitch of joyful shamelessness, the sisterly vitality that is beyond beauty standards and the oppression of feminine mystique.
The artistic union of Keymo and Demko, both represented by TA Foundation, is an energetic get-together of two incredible personas: “we propose to read the term womanspreading as something that exceeds the individual level to become ‘female spreading’ or ‘proliferation’, spreading the ‘female virus’. This is our key to the works of the Keymo/Demko duo.” Both eager and aware, both curious and visual, both reaching for the uncanny mystical and passionate about the corporeal, and each unique in their own way: “(…) “Keymo infects Demko with her eerie erotic tension and fantastic weirdness. Demko infects Keymo with her roguish and girlish energy like from Alice of Wonderland. Yet the power of these works exceeds the mutual relation of the artists — it spreads wide”.
We welcome you to join in and ride the wave, drop your guard and get infected. Feel it. “What spreads here is the affirmation of female freedom of expression, agency, and collectivity; a virus of the dreamy uncanny, a contestation of the rational masculine order and a lot of effervescent troublemaking”.
(from the text by Dr. Anna Chromik)
Keymo - a woman born in Olkusz in 1984, wants to become a photographer when she grows up, at the age of 11 found on the street by Zen Master Ho Min Hai, who taught her how to fight aliens with an iron ladder and communicate with deviants from all parts of the world.
Iwona Demko - a girl from the Bieszczady Mountains. Born on the 66th anniversary of the discovery of Venus from Willendorf - August 7, 1974 in Sanok. Long ago she graduated from the Sculpture Department at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. Now he works at his home university with the title of habilitated doctor. A rebel by birth. Vegetarian for over twenty years. One child - son of Claudel. She never married. Believer -– strongly believes in feminism and vaginism - a religion she created herself.