Justyna Badach
Justyna Badach examines the transmutation of history and repackaging of violence through appropriation and re-contextualization of images derived from films created for a male audience. Proxy War draws from two separate series, Land of Epic Battles (2015-2018) and Proxy War (2018-present), both comprised of large-scale dichromate prints made using photosensitive material and gunpowder. The images depict scenes culled from the online archives of ISIS recruitment data streams as well as American and Russian military internet propaganda, released as part of the ongoing war in the Middle East.
Working from the position of both censor and video editor, Badach appropriates and isolates these archives through screen captures, giving form to the info-war coded lexicon of methods, signs, and symbols of contemporary warfare. The overt violence displayed in the source material is registered subtly through this coded iconography and the medium’s destructive potential. These works become the means through which we witness the pernicious forces at play in contemporary internet war media that employs the sophisticated tools and visual vocabulary of virtual reality games, reality TV, and DIY videos. At first glance the images in Proxy War may seem random, but through her use of subtlety and materiality, Badach is pointing to a larger shift in manipulation tactics set to alter our collective understanding of reality, conflict, and war.
Zoom Artist Talk, July 21, 2021
Justyna Badach (American, Soviet Union born, b. 1972) was born in the Soviet Union and lived in Warsaw before coming to the United States as a refugee in 1980. She currently resides in Philadelphia, where she is an artist, educator, and museum professional. Her work is in the permanent collections of Cranbrook Art Museum, Michigan; Portland Art Museum, Oregon; and the Brandts Museum, Odense, Denmark. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, notably at Queensland College of Art, Griffith University, Brisbane; Light Work, Syracuse; Portland Art Museum, Oregon; Catherine Edelman Gallery, Chicago, among others. Her work has been featured in magazines such as Wired, Contact Sheet, F-Stop, and Dummy. Her artist book is in the library special collections of Rice University, Houston; Temple University, Philadelphia; and Haverford College, Haverford, Pennsylvania. She is the recipient of grants from the Leeway Foundation, Light Work, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and the Independence Foundation.