Recently featured by Residency UnlimitedWawrzyniec Gucewicz’s 2015 New York FilmNote is an essential cinematic ode to New York City as we know it, consisting of a sequence of meanderings through many of NYC’s iconic touch points – Times Square, Central Park, NYC’s bustling streets and underground arteries among them. The plot takes place in New York City: The protagonist of the story arrives in the city in one of the few remaining air ferries. Vacillating between black and white that evokes the street photography of Elliott Erwitt and Helen Levitt, and the saturated color of 1970s film, Gucewicz’s footage of NYC street scenes, holiday parades, subway buskers, Christmas windows and backyard holiday celebrations capture the relentless pulse of the city through everyday scenes and ambient sounds.

“This is how the third novel in the trilogy that I planned to write was to be opened. The plot was supposed to take place in the future, in New York. The protagonist of the story arrives in the city in one of the few remaining air ferries. It is these words that emerge within his mind. […]

Every domain of Man’s artistic activity which is based on Time, is inherently degradable. It is elusive and fragile. It is a testament to the feebleness of the human kind, as it is constructed over a wrongful idea of the existence of linear Time. […] Time is a deity, which we dear not deny. But isn’t the phenomenon of déjà vu a proof of its non-existence?“ –Gucewicz „There is No Time“

Wawrzyniec Gucewicz (based in Krakow, Poland) is an architect and film director, and a painter, who investigates the notions of time and the human figure as a form in every aspect: from psychological, through social, to political layer of life. After many years working in the film industry, Gucewicz returned to painting in 2017 with a focus on people and the times they live in, their ideas and inventions.

His colorful and big format figurative paintings are tightly connected to his earlier film projects such as an independent feature film “I see black” (2003) and a film impression New York Notefilm (2011-2015). These films were presented at film festivals in Poland (among others at the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia in 2003). Additionally, Wawrzyniec worked for more than two decades in film and television industry, he wrote several screenplays and a novel “Hydrophobia” (2009). He directed many TV shows and commercials which he also wrote scripts for. He always draws the storyboards for his film projects.

As a member of RARA Society of Artists he displayed his paintings in the exhibition at SARP Association in Warsaw already in 1988. After many years in film industry he returned to painting in 2017. His artworks are presented at Saatchi Art on-line gallery.

Gucewicz is also the 2020 artist-in-residence at Residency Unlimited, who currently had to return to Poland as a result of the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic and will be back in residence at RU in the fall of 2020.

Participation of Wawrzyniec Gucewicz at Residency Unlimited is supported by the Polish Cultural Institute New York and Adam Mickiewicz Institute. 

Residency Unlimited (RU) is a non-profit art organization that supports the creation, presentation and dissemination of contemporary art through its unique residency program and year-round public programs.

RU is located within the former South Congregational Church in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. The space is multifunctional, acting as a hub and meeting place for RU’s various communal activities, public programs, including talks, screenings, performances and exhibitions. Here artists and curators in residence meet with RU staff, conduct research, and at times produce work.

Residency Unlimited (RU) provides customized residencies for international and local artists and curators in New York City focused on network support, project/production assistance, and public exposure. This includes weekly meetings with art professionals aligning artistic and curatorial interests, regular project support with RU staff, and a public program opportunity  at our Brooklyn location or partnering venues throughout New York. www.residencyunlimited.org