WET PAINT

Those who prefer order, predictability and feel discomfort when met with ambiguity, may feel
confusion toward the operatic photographs that are ostentatiously bright and garish, playing
with the BDSM toys, pop culture, and mythology. And the questions that such viewers ask
themselves will probably go unanswered. Called the third great sensibility in the history of art
(after classicism and avant-garde), camp-like humor - is characterized by arbitrariness. It is like
a joke: its limits are undefined: some will laugh, others will not.

Formal dissonance, categorical contradiction, and finally cognitive confusion (what are we
watching?). All these sensations, experiences, and effects occur upon the first contact with
Studio Prokopiou publication. The cogitation that comes later complicates things even more -
not only the interpretation, but also our communication with the works of art, for which a
sense of taste developed in the course of education should prepare us for, familiar scenarios of
experiencing artistry, cultural competencies and, later, a hierarchy of values tamed in culture.
And they all invert - or at least become unsteady - in contact with camp. So we approach these
photographs unarmed, our defense mechanisms turn out to be useless, and our education or
cultural background is insufficient. Here we watch and talk about these works at our own risk,
knowing that our evaluative reception may be considered a failure, and we are slapstick fans or
ordinary barbarians.

And finally: is it a devastation of Greek culture - as dangerous as a smoker in an archive? Or a
relaunch of monuments (of our imagination) that threatens the death of the restorer? Jokes
about academism, classicism, and mannerism? Or maybe an artistic oscillation on the axis of life
and death? Everything and much more is happening in the Studio Prokopiou book. All the
associations that you would like to avert are justified. And if you are unsure whether the
symbols (stigmas, incompleteness, poses, colors) are taken seriously and criticized here

(mythology is not politically neutral), or is it just a trick - that’s good. Because camp is a kind of
love, it is tender, it is critical, it is uncritically affectionate. It is engaged, it is the sum of the
differences between the internal and the external. It is a kind of sensibility, it is exaggerated,
shameless, transgressive, amoral, marginal, inspirational, irritating, it is innocence, it is the loss
of innocence.

photography: Studio Prokopiou [Panagiotis Poimenidis & Phillip Prokopiou]

book design: Agata Bartkowiak

colour proofing and prepress: Krzysztof Krzysztofiak

curatorial work: Łukasz Rusznica

texts: Frater Acher, Donovan Greeff, Anka Herbut, Lauren John Joseph, Hugh Nianias,
Daniel Orrells, Alexandra Saliba, Agnieszka Wolny-Hamkało

English Translation: Marek Kazmierski, Aleksandra Szymczyk

Line Editing: Marek Kazmierski

Proofreading: Donovan Greeff

Administrative Coordinator: Joanna Kot

Coordinator Of The Editorial Office: Joanna Sokalska

printing and binding: Argraf, Warsaw

printed on paper: GardaPat 13 KLASSICA 135 g/m2, Burano Pink 120 g/m2
typeset: Change, Fautive, Lazarus

binding: Hardcover

number of pages: 252

publisher: Sun Archive (OPT Zamek)

partner: BWA Wrocław Gallery Of Contemporary Art

language of publication: English

year of production: 2024

edition: 800

ISBN: 978-83-971436-2-3

weight: 1800g

size: 23 x 33 cm