Exhibition preview: David Jablonowski – Tools and Orientations; Martin Maciejowski, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, until June 2 2013

Having turned to painting to try and fathom the political and cultural face of post-Communist Poland, Martin Maciejowski took popular imagery as a sensible starting point – newspaper photos, stills from TV and films, posters and advertisements, sifted and categorised, then transferred to paintings in realist reimaginings of everyday life.

Party-goers, military and religious figures, Hollywood heroes and film noir femme fatales take their place in 25 paintings here, often blurred to leave viewers deciphering their original meaning.

These are studies of the mundane rather than revolutionary. Overwhelmed by the Great Tradition of the City, from 2008, and Girl Drinking Beer, from 2009, forget traditional painterly traditions, instead relaying contemporary moods and stories.

In his first UK solo exhibition, meanwhile, the German artist David Jablonowski considers the history of technology through installations, videos and huge sculptures. So the nobly-named Gesterner Rotary Cyclostyle stencil machine stands alongside a Canon inkjet printer, and the pioneers responsible for the mouse and the hyperlink are portrayed in films.

Last year’s work, Volume, is a particular neck-craner: three large rectangular blocks seem to resemble slabs of stone, but are actually Styrofoam, carved, weathered and inlaid with lengths of aluminium.

Jablonowski often uses found texts and video footage to explore language. Examples from two of his series – Future of the Document (Nastaleegh) and Imposition – rest on fragments of Arabic calligraphy and imagery from the Manesse Codex, a medieval songbook from early 14th century Zurich.

• Open 10am-6pm (10.30am-6pm Tuesday). Admission free. Follow the gallery on Twitter @balticmill.

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