Opis wystawy
Experiencing a work of art, one has to look at it really close and build up one’s inner relationship with it from developing the work’s attentive description. Only then can one hear through it the artist’s soul, and perhaps even the beat of the times. Thus inspired, guided by the words of Władysław Witwicki put down as he embarked upon a trip to Athens in 1937, I am taking us for a walk, my style, to Sokołowsko. In the Wake of the One-Legged This will be a walk through different times and spaces, looking at what is not there, before our eyes, and what is there – a silent greatness. The work of hands but first of all, of the spirit. Its form and meaning larger-than-life. Possible Construction, Mystery of Time, Non Omnis Moriar, Drawing of Sculpture, System of Demarcation of the Image 01, and he – the One-Legged. Which creature has one voice and yet becomes four-footed and two-footed and three-footed?* A higher organism, for sure, can you remember of which order? It must be a vertebrate. The riddle solved. Brave Oedipus decoded his prophetic dream. Today, an eye-to-eye encounter, not with Sphinx and not a life-and-death match, but about life and death following in the wake of the One-Legged with Bożenna Biskupska. His protracted presence deserves attention. An invincible figure, almost always fittingly written with the capital letter, faithful to its primeval nature. A powerful pillar, strong and sharp. Balanced and well-measured, the One-Legged leaves an imprint rather than a trace. If he could be forced to move, he would firmly keep his one foot to the ground. He is a dynamic form but mostly in the vertical plane. He is animated above his leg line. He has his head in the clouds. There is something human about him, but there is also an animal element. The artist leaves us in the dark. She successfully covers his/her tracks. Called to life in concrete, he is cold, rough, and wrinkled. Cast in bronze, he encourages touching and looking at in the round, in paintings – he is almost always shown in profile. His physical traits provide clues about his true essence. Who is he? The artist has created and anatomically simple and spatially uncomplicated model whose structure she repeatedly draws, paints and sculpts thus raising the triumphant armies of his figures, shadows, and reflections. They live in a herd but retain their individuality. Grouping without categorization. It may happen that for us, like for Oedipus in the Greek myth, the physical world won’t provide the necessary answer. Because how far and deep should we reach, what clues should we consider, whom should we follow so that we are not misguided? So that we do not go astray, nor defile the ideas buried long time ago, nor trample upon self-sown plants. To be able to revive the enchanted mountain (Sokołowsko). To create collective and communal value. To leave a trace, a shadow. Balancing between finalities, Biskupska has created a field for her originality, with the One-Legged as its iconic figure. He is a meta-creature, a creation brought to life with extreme effort, spread between time and space, part of Biskupska’s artistic grammar but free of its rules. Placed alongside the Venus of Milo and Nike of Samothrace, the One-Legged cuts through history showing that motif emerging from life’s matter processed through time and space is always worthy of a pedestal. * In Greek mythology, the Sphinx was a creature with the head and breasts of a woman, body of a lion, and wings of an eagle. Perched on a cliff over a ravine through which passed the road to Thebes, she would challenge travellers to a riddle she had learned from the Muses, “Which creature has one voice and yet becomes four-footed and two-footed and three-footed?” She killed and ate those who failed to provide the right answer, until Oedipus did by saying: “Man as an infant, he crawls on all fours, as an adult, he walks on two legs, in old age, he uses a walking stick.” Upon hearing the correct answer, the Sphinx threw herself off the cliff.