 |
|||
|
| Introduction by Wojciech Ciesielski |
Wojciech Ciesielski
|
Additional Comments:
(Introduction to the Catalogue of „Paintings, Objects, Installations” Exhibition of Waldemar Wojciechowski, The National Museum in Szczecin, November 2006)
This catalogue constitutes a part of the individual exhibition of Waldemar Wojciechowski, organised by The National Museum in Szczecin. The title of the exhibition refers to another “Images and images” exhibition, which took place in the “Entazis” gallery. Wojciechowski has written about the works that were exhibited at that time: “The first aspect of a picture is an object covered in paint, the second is a classic illusion and depiction of another reality and the third, a composition originating from the properties of the medium, for instance according to the Unism of Strzemiński, the partition of the surface of a canvas derives from the canvas surface”.The first side of the image is an artefact, the second is the iconic sign of reality beyond the gallery and the third the inner ‘pattern’ of some properties of a solid marked on it (....) In the face of such intricate semantic confrontation, merely the apprehension of language abuse is a reason why the exhibition was not called “Images, images and images”.
This text does not accompany the exhibition, but as with the arrangement of the gallery as well as the choice of illustrations and the editing, it is the artist’s work. The text exists as a continuation and a supplement of the exhibition, perhaps it would be expressed better by a metaphor referring to the white pages of the catalogue as a reflection of the gallery walls. A problem of an ‘original copy’ (named by the artist), is not one reason in the face of which the objects and the illustrations could convey the charge of similar qualities. That is why both, the catalogue and the gallery space were treated with almost the same sensitivity and care.
Here are the words of Lech Karwowski, suitable in both instances: “The objects of Wojciechowski look different in the reality of a gallery than in the open air. His actions are always a reply to a real space, where the action has to emerge. It is, it has to be noted, always the relation affirming to a traditional place where art appears, whether it is a gallery or the open air”.
While both elements supplement each other, they are still able to exist independently. Similarly, the points of reference were gradually moving into the depths (from the observer to infinity) within the exhibition “Images and Images” at the Entazis gallery. It is no coincidence that the collected texts mainly concern simply this exhibition. Leszek Knaflewski describes the gradual movement of the viewer from one level of consciousness to another. He develops the idea of increasingly detailed phases of reception that simultaneously change with the viewer’s levels of consciousness. Actually, the object we see remains the same. Wojciechowski writes: “It is beyond question that reality is actually a kind of continuum, art does not differ so much in this regard. This is noticeable in a situation where there is difficulty arising from an attempt to capture art in various coherent formulae and forms”.
In this context the exhibition (the catalogue as well) involved realisations made in various periods of the artist’s work. Just such a juxtaposition of the works along enable the viewer to not only to become acquainted with the artist’s consistent way of experimentation and inspiration, but also situates the works in a new context. The context not only reveals new tensions and qualities, but creates them as well. In this juxtaposition the opportunity to create another field of reality has emerged, in which the particular objects, installations and worlds of images have made up the expanded reality of the exhibition, of which the image (a reflection) is the catalogue and vice versa. The exhibition is a reflection of the catalogue containing ‘the original copies’ of the work. We are faced with multiplying alternate levels of meaning included in the art works and in reality of which they are part.Image has become similarly multiplied in the so-called “Wojciechowski’s Dice”, however in the “Dice” reality is multiplied into an infinity of mirror images. In the instance of the exhibition “Images and Images” one picture is entailed in another, like in the fractals of Mandelbrot. Additionally, both the catalogue and the exhibition are mirrored in each other.