Simultaneous passe-par-tout II

At the turn of 2006 and 2007, exhibitions summarising almost 50 years of Jan Berdyszak's creative work were held in Poznań galleries (and the Wozownia gallery in Toruń). Each of the exhibitions concerned a different theme preoccupying the artist. Among the works presented - in the Poznań Arsenal, the Stary Browar and the Piekary gallery, among others - one can find works from the Passe-par-tout cycle. In them the artist examines the viewer's perception, the moment of passage or of the complementing of objects and associations, and above all space and time (the future in counterpoint to the past). Jan Berdyszak's works hitherto known to the wider public, and the artist's basic assumption concerning the passe-partout opening space, both in the physical and in the perceptual layer, were expanded in the 1990s with pass-par-tout, with the moment of passage: through / everywhere (translation: passe-par and par-tout). „In the works from the Passe-par-tout cycle Berdyszak reverses the traditional relationship between the empty and the non-empty. In the centre he places an empty space framed by a kind of passe-partout, which becomes something like an ornament attracting the viewers' attention in order to direct it towards the empty interior. What we are used to associating with the image becomes the frame, the margin, the supplement, something subordinate, degraded, deprived of its previous position. But the passe-partout is also pass-par-tout - a passage towards the whole. Without this passage every image would be an incomplete image, potential, possible, yet absent, and we might not perceive it at all, might overlook it. The passe-partout is the complement and the key to the whole work; it opens that which is internal and limited onto that which is external and unlimited.” (Grzegorz Dziamski, text for the exhibition of Jan Berdyszak organised at the Arsenał gallery in Poznań, source: arsenał.art.pl) Jan Berdyszak's works, corresponding with space, increasingly enjoy the interest of buyers. The outstanding works of this classic of the avant-garde can still be bought at bargain prices, which may constitute an excellent investment. This year a collector acquired his work „Passe-par-tout II” (122 x 132 cm) from 1990-1992 at the Polswiss Art auction house for 90,000 zlotys (excluding the auction premium).