Do tekstu Dantego
Three bronzes · 1986–1988
Two bronzes carry Dante in their titles: «do tekstu Dantego», on Dante’s text. The first is from 1986, two spires side by side that almost touch at the tip. The second is from 1988: a disc split by a thin fault, smooth on one side and boiling on the other.
The third does not carry him. It is called «Wzrastanie», growth, and belongs to the Discs; at home it has a second name as well, «Ogień», fire. It is under that one that in 1988 it reaches Ravenna, and the 8th International Biennial of the Dantesque Bronze.
The two that carry the name
1986 and 1988Two years apart, and two opposite ways of standing: the first rises, the second opens.
Droga do nieba do tekstu Dantego
The road to Heaven, on Dante’s text
1986 · bronze · h 30 cm
The full title comes from the artist’s album; the catalogue had only «Droga do Nieba».
Oczyszczenie przez ogień do tekstu Dantego
Purification through fire, on Dante’s text
1988 · bronze · h 50 cm
The album’s bilingual caption gives everything: title, year, material and size.
Plates from the monographic album «Rzeźba», Siedlce 2009.
The fire
What divides the two halvesIn the 1988 disc the fault separates two states of the same material: on the left the bronze is quiet, scored by a few oblique lines; on the right it is all tongues and ridges. The title says what stands between them: the fire that purifies.
And 1988 does not have one bronze of fire. It has two.
Ravenna, 1988
8th International Biennial of the Dantesque BronzeThe Biennial of the Dantesque Bronze is held at the Centro Dantesco in Ravenna. Antonina is there in 1988, and in the catalogue her page is on the left: name, country, title, material and measurements.
The title is «Fuoco», fire, and the work is the disc that in Polish is called «Wzrastanie». The photograph shows it with the signature cut into the base, on its squared plinth.
On the right, on the same double page, a bronze by Wolf Eike Kuntsche, and under the title the reference to the canto: «Coppia (Inf., V, 124)». Under Antonina’s name that reference is not there.
In the room, though, this disc was not there. Biennial catalogues are printed in advance, from the photographs the artist sends: to Ravenna Antonina took «Oczyszczenie przez ogień do tekstu Dantego».
Growth, or fire
The two names of the same bronzeThe same disc has two names, and they are not translations of one another. «Wzrastanie» is growth: the fissure is a husk splitting, and what comes out is a shoot. «Ogień» is fire: the same fissure becomes a flame, and the rising points are tongues.
For the catalogue of a Dantesque biennial she chose fire.