Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/joanna-piotrowska-28684" aria-label="More by Joanna Piotrowska" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Joanna Piotrowska</a>
II Frowst
Presented by the Estate of Thomas Frangenberg 2019
<p><span>II, Frowst</span> 2013–4 is one of a series of black and white photographs by Joanna Piotrowska collectively titled <span>Frowst </span>(see also Tate P15042, P15043 and P15044). It depicts a male figure standing with his head tilted slightly downwards, with closed eyes. His right arm hangs by his side, while with his left he leans on an item of furniture. The checked sweatshirt he wears is tucked into a pair of tracksuit bottoms. The arm of an unseen figure is draped loosely around the man’s shoulders. With the figure occupying most of the photograph, against surrounding deep shadows and a towering, cluttered bookcase, an atmosphere of oppressive claustrophobia is conveyed.</p>
paper print photograph gelatin silver
22 April 2019 – 5 September 2021
2021-09-05
22 April 2019 – 5 September 2021
2021-09-05
2019-04-22
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2019-04-22
Sixty Years Refresh
Collection based display
II, Frowst
image: 519 × 410 mm
Presented by the Estate of Thomas Frangenberg 2019
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<p>
<i>II, Frowst</i> 2013–4 is one of a series of black and white photographs by Joanna Piotrowska collectively titled <i>Frowst </i>(see also Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/piotrowska-i-frowst-p15042" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P15042</span></a>, <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/piotrowska-iv-frowst-p15043" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P15043</span></a> and <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/piotrowska-vi-frowst-p15044" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P15044</span></a>). It depicts a male figure standing with his head tilted slightly downwards, with closed eyes. His right arm hangs by his side, while with his left he leans on an item of furniture. The checked sweatshirt he wears is tucked into a pair of tracksuit bottoms. The arm of an unseen figure is draped loosely around the man’s shoulders. With the figure occupying most of the photograph, against surrounding deep shadows and a towering, cluttered bookcase, an atmosphere of oppressive claustrophobia is conveyed.</p>
<p>
<i>Frowst </i>is a series of staged photographs that depict family inter-relationships. The English word ‘frowst’, no longer in common usage, means a hot and stuffy atmosphere. It alludes to the claustrophobic, slightly uncomfortable world Piotrowska creates. She was influenced while working on this series by the psychotherapist Bert Hellinger’s notion of Family Constellations, an alternative therapeutic method which draws on elements of family systems therapy, existential phenomenology and Zulu attitudes to family. The images in the <i>Frowst</i> series carefully reconstruct scenes from both the artist’s and others’ childhoods, and their compositions are often based on old family snapshots. The parts of youthful siblings are played by adults, which renders the tableaus awkward and unnatural. Piotrowska uses a style of photography that resembles classic documentary in order to disrupt the viewer’s expectations, creating uncertainty about the truth or artifice of what one sees. Piotrowska has said of this series:</p>
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</p><blockquote>I was hoping that the images would evoke uncomfortable associations in the viewer and I was looking for gestures and poses with ambivalent meaning. I had some ideas I noted when researching family constellations therapies (both theoretically and practically), some of them came from my own experience and some of them from the other people’s family photographs … My aim was not to tell a story, but evoke scattered associations of inertia, violence or being mentally overwhelmed, but all of this accompanied by contradictory feelings: intimacy, closeness, joy, protection, and tenderness … The poses themselves are not that awkward: there is a kiss, a hug, sitting on knees … What makes them awkward is that the pictures are staged by adult children so we see independent individuals in vulnerable and powerless positions. <br/>(Quoted in Campion<i> 2014,</i> accessed 8 January 2019.)</blockquote>
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<i>Frowst</i> is one of the artist’s best-known series of work and also the subject of her first monographic book, <i>Frowst</i>, published in 2014. This work was formerly in the collection of Thomas Frangenberg (1958–2018), a historian of renaissance art but also a passionate collector of contemporary art since the late 1970s. The focus of this collection was artists who work within the traditions of conceptual art and the majority of works were acquired direct from the artists, often early in their careers.</p>
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<b>Further reading</b>
<br/>Joanna Piotrowska, <i>Frowst</i>, London 2014.<br/>Darren Campion, ‘Uncertain Constellations: An Interview with Joanna Piotrowska’,<i> Paper Journal, 14 July 2014, </i><a href="https://paper-journal.com/joanna-piotrowska/">https://paper-journal.com/joanna-</a><a href="https://paper-journal.com/joanna-piotrowska/">piotrowska/#.XDTqOU1F3IU</a>,<i> accessed 8 January 2019.</i>
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<p>Helen Delaney and Andrew Wilson <br/>July 2019</p>
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Summary
2021-11-17T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT