The Enemy is Love | Hubert Czerepok

Описание: Hubert Czerepok’s exhibition creates a space in which neon texts, light, media, and cultural quotations become entangled in the mechanisms of displacement, denial, and repetition. Sigmund Freud had already identified these mechanisms as symptomatic “acts of getting lost” in speech and action, such as slips of the tongue and mistakes. It is well worth approaching this exhibition as a reflection on the unconscious – on what can emerge in the space between language and its form, between a symbolic message and its unconscious, excluded aspect. Czerepok often employs neon signs that feature texts from the media, popular culture, history, and public space. He is interested in anything that can serve as a slogan, manifesto, or expression of hate speech (e.g., You will never be a Pole). The artist also borrows quotes from literature, including passages from the books of Jan Tomasz Gross. Czerepok’s works operate on a certain unconscious, dislodged layer of our collective language and culture. What is – seemingly openly – expressed by the neon sign points to a layer that has been “taken over,” “confused,” or “suspended.” Here, one can draw an analogy with Freud’s concept of “slips of the tongue.” The act of language (or action) says more than meets the eye. One neon sign project by Czerepok, for instance, subtly manipulates language by inserting the word “not” where it wasn’t previously present: “One day people will not live like brothers.” This small, “corrected” neon sign reflects a shift that points not only to history but also to the replication of a mistake: humanity does not learn; it repeats what it was meant to overcome. This could be read as a collective “mistake”/”slip of the tongue”: an idealistic vision has been squandered, and the neon sign, through a slip of the tongue, exposes this very fact. Another category of Czerepok’s neon signs comprises “malfunctions.” These pieces draw inspiration from instances in which a neon sign’s content is subversively altered by the burning out or flickering of one of its letters. A 1980s urban legend states that when the ideologically appropriate neon sign promoting Poznań’s “OSIEDLE RUSA” (RUSA HOUSING ESTATE) malfunctioned, it read instead – much to the chagrin of the authorities – “OSIEDLE USA” (USA HOUSING ESTATE).


Curator: Marek Wasilewski