FIGHTERS

CURATOR: WOJTEK WIETESKA

Maciej Niesłony Fighters

As long as you’re fighting – you’re a winner.

St. Augustine

The cycle Fajterzy (Fighters) consists of over twenty colourful portraits of Polish Olympic medallist boxers. Between 1948-1992, Poles won the top trophies in amateur boxing. Kazimierz PaĹşdzior, Jerzy Kulej and Marian Kasprzyk, under the command of Polish coach of all time Feliks Stamm, often stood on the podium. I became interested in what happens to great athletes once several decades have passed. What they look like, what they think, and what their place is in the modern world; sports stars that were once recognised from newspaper front pages. These simple psychological portraits are a round-up of the grandeur of Polish boxers of that period.

Maciej Niesłony (b. 1982, Chorzów) – graduate of the School of Photography at the National Film School in ŁódĹş; also studied at the Institute for Creative Photography in Opava. He has won grants from the Marshal of Silesia Province. He mainly works with portrait photography. He has several individual exhibitions under his belt (such as Class, The Spectre of Memory, Curtain) as well as collective (36, Sensitive Sharpness, Photographers of Tomorrow). He is author and co-author of numerous publications. His photography was used in the documentary Art on Screen – Piotr Naliwajko.