Craft & Process

Agnieszka Mastalerz: Why the Polish Artist Refuses Trendy Tools

Agnieszka Mastalerz tells Contemporary Lynx she won't adopt tools for fashion's sake, staking her practice on idea-first decisions over novelty.

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“I don't want to reach for tools simply because they're trendy.” In Conversation with Agnieszka Mastalerz - Contemporary
“I don't want to reach for tools simply because they're trendy.” In Conversation with Agnieszka Mastalerz - ContemporaryAI-generated

Polish artist Agnieszka Mastalerz has laid out a blunt principle for how she chooses her working methods: "I don't want to reach for tools simply because they're trendy." The remark anchors a newly published interview with Contemporary Lynx, in which Mastalerz discusses the thinking behind her interdisciplinary practice and her resistance to technique-driven fashion.

The quote is doing real work in the conversation. Mastalerz positions her choices — of medium, apparatus, process — as subordinate to the idea of a given work, not as markers of currency. It's a stance with teeth in a field where artists face steady pressure to adopt whatever platform or technology dominates the moment.

What does this change for viewers?

In practical terms, it means the work arrives on its own terms. An artist who declines the trendy tool isn't rejecting new methods outright; she's insisting that adoption has to be earned by the concept. That's a slow position, and an increasingly countercultural one.

Mastalerz works across disciplines, and the interview situates her practice in that interstitial space — one where photography, object, installation and process inform each other rather than compete for primacy. The conversation with Contemporary Lynx, a publication dedicated to Polish and Central European art, gives her room to explain the logic rather than the label.

The strength of the piece is its refusal of shorthand. Instead of a survey of outputs, the interview circles the question of artistic integrity in tool selection — how an artist stays honest when the market rewards novelty.

Readers tracking Polish contemporary art, or anyone weighing how technology should enter an artist's studio, will find the full conversation at Contemporary Lynx. It signals that Mastalerz's next moves will be judged, by her own standard, on idea first, instrument second.

Key points

  • Agnieszka Mastalerz gave an interview to Contemporary Lynx about her artistic practice.
  • Her stated principle: "I don't want to reach for tools simply because they're trendy."
  • The artist works across disciplines, with concept driving choice of technique.

Source: Google News: photography exhibition

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Marcus Bennett

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Correspondent covering companies, deals and strategy in Photography exhibitions, photographers, photo books, festivals and awards at Lens Gazette.

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