Jan Manski’s current project, POSSESIA, presents an uncompromising
body of work whose evolution reveals a ritualised re-awakening of 
the destruction that spread across Europe 100 years ago.

Manski has been developing POSSESIA since 2010 as the starting
point for his working trilogy of POSSESIA, ONANIA and EUGENICA.
The POSSESIA universe is composed of Manski’s sculpture, film and
collage techniques. As in ONANIA, Manski presents a lexicon of
cruelty in POSSESIA, introducing a pagan world of the occult merged
with a God-sent plague.

The Idol looms over his environment as the grand Master of
Ceremonies, whose oppressive authority is only implied by his
absence. The perpetrator’s mutated face is always obscured or
burned away in reproduction. POSSESIA’s metaphor of violence is
evoked through dark, organic materials including fur, leather, soil,
antlers, despoiled vintage mannequins and animal bones assembled
with steel. Physical labour is indicated through rusting tools and
defunct farming machinery, while animal remains and synthetic
objects discoloured with earth evoke an authoritarian machine-
aesthetic. Abandoned photographs and anatomical plates indicate
the central protagonist’s brutal existence. As the totemic sculptures,
grotesque mannequins and stylised instruments of torture, these
objects are fetishised in glass cabinets.

POSSESIA’s shamanistic atmosphere suggests latent drives within
human nature, intentionally suppressed in favour of reassuring
behaviour. Nevertheless, Manski’s recent universe proves that these
instincts can be channelled into familiar cycles of violence.

A selection of sculptures and collages from POSESSIA has been
shown at BREESE LITTLE (27th February – 30th March 2013) in
Manski, Cohen, de Freston in preparation for an extensive solo 
show in October 2013.

BREESE LITTLE, February 2013