Piotr Uklanski

Through performance, photography, and installation, Piotr Uklanski deals with notions of good and bad taste. His work says as much about the sweet happiness of beauty as it does about the guilt that contributes to the enjoyment of the experience. Finding beauty between the familiar and the banal in places that have been forgotten or never thought of, he involves the audience in environments ruled by a "feel-good" aspect, which conveys sentimentality, desire, and nostalgia. Uklanski's Dance Floor (1996), consists of a grid of multicolored lights flashing in time to the beat of contemporary dance music. The dance floor is installed as an unobtrusive part of the natural architecture of the gallery, thus proving unavoidable for visitors. While the piece calls to mind the hedonistic quality of a nightclub, there is also the frustration of not being able to abandon oneself to the environment and the music as one might in a regular club. There is a necessary tension between the space, place, desire, and expectation. This work also reinforces Ukla–ski's ironic affiliation to modernism and the work of artists such as Carl Andre and Dan Flavin. Going beyond simple spectacle, Dance Floor comments on self-representation, individual and collective memory, and identity construction through popular iconography, even as it acts as a seductive yet misleading passageway through the gallery.